Kris Bourcier

I'm back, after a very long break. Won't go into the details of what I've been doing for the past 4 months, but I will show just a few pics.

My husband and I have started on a huge reforestation project on our land on the central, west coast of New Caledonia.

When I first saw the farm, I wasn't moved by it's beauty, but by it's desolation. (I am now completly in love with the dry forest and mangroves) We have recently found out that the trees had been cleared at least 50 or more years before, for cattlle grazing. But because the area is so dry to begin with, and because the wild deer population has gotten completly out of control, the area had turned into a dessert. The deer eat all the grass, down to it's roots, and they eat anything that grows, including any new trees.

So the first part of the project is to get rid of the deer. Not an easy task, and not done yet. Basically, they will be captured and sold to deer farmers, to eventually be butchered for meat.

The second part of the project is putting up the fences around a few bits of Ironwood forests that do exist, to see what will happen when they are left in peace, then to start plowing up the dry grass and weeds to start planting trees adapted to our soil and climate.

This is just the begining of years of planting and caring for the trees, and keeping the deer out.

Here are a few little reminders I made,

to remember that nature needs a helping hand, not a destructive one, and to eat more deer meat!