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<\/p>\nThe slope of a hill not far from the center of Saint-Pierre has become a refuge for a plant that nearly went extinct. The Saint-Pierre estr\u00e9e has found a new home.<\/p>\n
To wrap up the month of October, the conservatory launched a project to restore the Estr\u00e9e de Saint-Pierre to its natural habitat. As its name suggests, the plant is native to the former capital city, the only known location where it has been recorded in Martinique. Just like the city itself, the Saint-Pierre estr\u00e9e has endured its share of hardships. After the 1902 eruption of Mount Pel\u00e9e, it was believed to have disappeared until the 1970s, when botanists rediscovered it. To ensure the species\u2019 survival, seeds were then sent to the National Botanical Conservatory. The goal was to ensure a seed supply in the event of natural extinction. Time would prove the botanists\u2019 precautions to be wise. As the years passed, the Saint-Pierre estr\u00e9e became increasingly rare and was ultimately declared extinct in the wild, according to scientists at the laboratory.<\/p>\n
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An action plan led by the Martinique Botanical Conservatory aims to reintroduce the species to its original habitat at Morne d\u2019Orange in Saint-Pierre, very close to the lookout point. But it wasn\u2019t enough to simply dig a hole and plant a seed. Reintroducing the estr\u00e9e required ambitious logistics. Many invasive alien species had taken root on the hill. \u00abWe couldn\u2019t simply replant the species as is because there are species that aren\u2019t naturally found in Martinique and were introduced by humans. They disrupt the ecosystem because they take the place of our native Martinican species,\u00bb explains Irais Loiseau, project manager for national action plans at the Martinique Botanical Conservatory.<\/p>\n
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After clearing the site of invasive species, technicians from the botanical conservatory replanted native species with the goal of creating a balanced ecosystem to reintroduce the Saint-Pierre estr\u00e9e. A total of 375 trees were planted. \u00abThese are common species, but they will help structure the environment so that its functions can be restored,\u00bb explains Irais Loiseau. The plants were planted in plots using different methods to understand how they function. \u00abThe basic idea is more about reintroducing the species to its original habitat than about gathering scientific data.\u00bb<\/p>\n
No future reintroduction project for the Saint-Pierre sprat is planned. In fact, the goal was to reintroduce the species to its historical range.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, from a more experimental perspective, the estr\u00e9e was introduced elsewhere\u2014also in the northern Caribbean\u2014in the municipality of Carbet. \u00abThis was done at a site with an ecosystem different from that of Morne d\u2019Orange, though with some similarities, so that the two populations could be compared.\u00bb<\/p>\n
These reintroduction efforts do not prevent the botanical conservatory from maintaining a seed bank of *Estr\u00e9e*. \u00abOur goal is always to maintain stocks of the most endangered species so that we have the resources to reestablish populations in the event of extinction. In this case, this species is covered by a national action plan that calls for the establishment of ex situ stocks in a nursery to ensure that individuals are available.\u00bb<\/p>\n
The Martinique Botanical Conservatory\u2019s collection contained more than just Saint-Pierre estr\u00e9e seeds. Many strictly endemic species are threatened with extinction. The barrel vine has already been reintroduced in Carbet. You can spot it along the roadside on the way to Bellefontaine. \u00abThere are a great many rare and endangered species in the territory that we\u2019d like to focus on in our projects.\u00bb<\/p>\n
Laurianne Nomel<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" La plantation de l\u2019estr\u00e9e de Saint-Pierre qui a bien failli dispara\u00eetre est la derni\u00e8re marche d’un plan national d\u2019action. Le plan a d\u00e9marr\u00e9 il y a cinq ans. Aujourd\u2019hui, la plante aux fleurs violettes a retrouv\u00e9 son site historique \u00e0 Saint-Pierre. Le flanc d\u2019un morne non loin du centre bourg de Saint-Pierre est devenu le<\/p>","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":83013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_robots":null,"rank_math_facebook_title":"","rank_math_facebook_description":"","rank_math_twitter_title":"","rank_math_twitter_description":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-actualite"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antilla-martinique.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antilla-martinique.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antilla-martinique.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antilla-martinique.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antilla-martinique.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/antilla-martinique.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antilla-martinique.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antilla-martinique.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antilla-martinique.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antilla-martinique.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}