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In January and February, the mountainsides of Helskloof usually blaze yellow-orange-red as thousands of Pearson’s Aloes flower. It’s an astonishing display of plant life in the desiccated expanses of the |Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park. But nowadays, all is not well.
The aloe occupies only about 52km² in the Richtersveld, and just over the Orange River in Namibia. Livestock feeds on it when under pressure; mining and drought are other threats. But some kind of tipping point has struck. In late November 2020, the park’s nursery curator, Pieter van Wyk, mapped out a 50m by 50m square transect in Helskloof, and counted the number of dead and living aloes within it. All too many had turned to lifeless, grey-brown husks. The characteristic reddish leaves atop the survivors, too, were unnervingly sparse, despite recent good rains. “None of them is healthy,” Van Wyk says. “This population is likely to [become] extinct.”