“Gran Abuelo” - world’s oldest tree in Chile needs protection!

The world’s oldest tree located in the Chilean Andes may be mute but is witness to history of thousands of years. The ancient alerce is called “Gran Abuelo” or great grandfather whose age has been calculated to be 5,400 years by a new computer model, states a report in sciencealert.com.

On the confirmation of its age, this coniferous tree will be 600 years older to the one which is the official record holder – the Great Basin bristlecone pine called “Methuselah” in California.

The real age of the tree is disputed since its dendrochronology is incomplete. This method analyses the rings of the tree and is considered as the gold standard for determining the age. The data for the model has neither been given to a peer-reviewed journal nor released in the public domain.

According to the researcher who created the model, Jonathan Barichivich, irrespective of the age, this ancient tree is in danger and needs protection. Barichivich is a climate and global ecology scientist at Paris’ Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory.

Highlighting this aspect, Barichivich told Live Science: "It's really in poor condition because of tourism.” Change in climate too is posing danger to it.

The conifer Gran Abuelo in Chile’s Alerce Costero National Park is 196 feet in height and initially it was thought to be 3,500 years old. Barichivich said that the age was never studied systematically and that is what he intended. "We wanted to tell the story of the tree with the only aim to valorize it and protect it," he said.

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