Photo by simonnorfolkstudio / Mist-shrouded trees draped in moss along the footpath to the summit of Green Mountain, Ascension Island, South Atlantic. When Charles Darwin visited Ascension in 1836 he commented that the island was arid and “entirely destitute of trees.” After engaging his friend Joseph Hooker, later director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, Darwin, Hooker, and the Royal Navy essentially embarked on the world's first experiment in terraforming. They created a self-sustaining and self-reproducing ecosystem in an attempt to make Ascension more habitable. Green Mountain is the world’s only artificial cloud forest—a dense and verdant botanical wonderland on the one hand, but an environmental disaster on the other (as non-endemic species have all but overwhelmed the native ferns). Follow me simonnorfolkstudio for updates, outtakes, and unpublished and archive material. simonnorfolkstudio #NationalPark #simonnorfolk #forests #naturalworld #ascensionisland