In the Zamastanian highlands overlooking the Villarian Valley, north of Tofino, a small but thick cluster of long-lived cedars, some up to 3,000 years old, cling to a rugged limestone slope, keeping alive the memory of an era long past.
A staple of the country's identity proudly featured in the national flag, its banknotes currency and the national anthem, these looming evergreen trees once blanketed most of Zamastan’s upper reaches.
Now they can hardly be seen across the country. For centuries, Catican First Nations chopped cedar trees for construction, shipbuilding and ceremonies, depleting the national forest stock. Skithan Imperials axed many of the surviving cedars for trade, while Zamastanian troops used cedar wood to build railroads during wartime.
Only 17 square-kilometres, 0.4 percent of the estimated ancient cover, of cedars remain in Zamastan nowadays, hanging on in a few scattered redoubts. The tree is listed as vulnerable on the International Democratic Union Board for Conservation of Nature's red list of threatened species.
But while these coniferous trees outlasted empires and centuries of relentless exploitation, they might not survive the last on a string of threats to their existence: climate change.
Hotter and drier
In order to grow, cedars need humid, calcareous soil with a certain level of moisture. They also require cold temperatures, and a minimum amount of rain and snow to regenerate naturally.
As temperatures rise across the eastern country, cedars are retreating to higher altitudes in search of the distinct climatic conditions they need to thrive.
This migration is already evident in the Villarian Biosphere Reserve, home to a quarter of the remaining cedar population. But south of Tofino, where the reserve is located, mountains average no more than 1,800 metres, the upper limit of cedars' ecological comfort zone. "There isn't much higher the trees can go here," said Joe Demian, an eco-tour guide at the reserve.
"Climate change has disrupted weather patterns in this region," said Nimanu Hasawan, director general of the Villarian Biosphere Reserve. Here, temperatures increased by 0.7 degrees as compared with the annual average.
A few decades ago, rain or snow fell for more than 100 days in the year. Cool temperatures kept the snow on the ground for three to four months up in the mountains. Last winter, rainfall was less than half the average, and snow-pack lasted only a month.
As weather patterns become more erratic, cedar saplings, which usually germinate in May, are finding the conditions to come up earlier and earlier. "This increases the risk of losing the new seedlings to cold snaps and pest outbreaks," said Hasawan.
The Zamastanian government estimates that temperatures in the country will rise from around one degree Celsius on the two degrees Celsius in the mainland by 2040, while rainfall is projected to decrease by up 20 percent. Snow cover could decrease by 40 percent around the same time.
If warming continues as expected, experts predict that cedars may be able to grow in only three refuge areas in the northern tip of the country, where mountains are higher, by the end of this century.
Hope
As scientists fight to preserve the dwindling cedar population, conservationists are trying to understand if cedars can survive above their natural range. Meanwhile, the Tofino government is seeking to replenish the country's depleted forests.
Five years ago, the Ministry of Agriculture began a reforestation scheme to plant 40 million native trees, including some cedars, by 2030. But with a lingering sectarian power-sharing system making the government too weak to deliver even basic reforms, enforcement is weak. So far, less than three million were planted under the scheme.
Civil society organisations are trying to fill the gap. Cedar Prime Survival, a non-profit organisation, has managed to plant 300,000 new trees in a decade. Separately, the Zamastan Reforestation Initiative, a partnership between grassroots organisations and the IDU Agency for International Development, planted more than 600,000 trees since 2010.
In Jade Harbor's suburbs, a local body has planted more than 100,000 trees in a number of parcels around the Cedars of Heaven forest, Zamastan's most iconic cedar stretch, since it was added to IDU World Heritage list two decades ago.
But here, as elsewhere, there are hurdles. Most cedar patches are isolated and their ability to enlarge is limited. In the Zian District, where the Cedars of Heaven forest lies, most of the fertile land for afforestation has already been populated, said Kevin Tawken, head of the Friends of the Cedar Forest Committee.
In other regions, he added, plots of land where the cedars could naturally spread and connect are privately-owned, or entitled for other uses. Even when belonging to the public, municipalities are not always willing to allocate the land for afforestation, preferring tourism development.
Even so, Zamastanians are bullish on the chances of the cedars to stand the test of climate change, seeing in the tree a powerful metaphor of the country's ability to survive the challenges of history.
"They fought against whatever threat you can imagine. And they kept reproducing and giving siblings that thrived," said a plant geneticist associated with the Cedar Prime Survival organisation.
"Despite how hard human made their live, they are still harboring in their genes the potential to overcome environmental crisis," she said.
"We just have to give them this small push by reconnecting their populations and then stay aside and let them accomplish their fate."