The Banzai Chicken Blog: Fairyland's Flax

One of the things St Helena was famous for (the other being a short French bloke) was it's use of New Zealand flax to make rope. In the olden days before synthetics St Helena rope was in high demand and this demand continued up to the 1960's as the UK postal service used St Helena twine to tie the tops of mail bags. Cultivation of flax was the island's only major industry, and large areas of the uplands were cleared of native vegetation and replanted with a flax monoculture. After the arrival of synthetic ropes the flax industry on St Helena crashed. As it was the only large employer on the island, many people lost their jobs - which was the start of the St Helena's Government working subsidies which has lead it to being the largest employer on the island (about 30% of Saints work directly for Government). The flax plantations have increased in size since they're no longer cut, and are now a major conservation issue in the highlands as virtually nothing grows within them. Windblown flax leaves also whip native plants to death and they thieve much of the water that falls on the Peaks. Being New Zealander's we find it strange (still) to see flax thriving on a tropical island. What is also unusual is that the species grown here is Phormium tenax - NZ's swamp flax, but here it grows in habitats we'd associate with cliff flax (P. cookianum) back in NZ. On St Helena, P. tenax can even be an epiphyte, nourished by the constant moist cloud cap that shrouds the islands Peaks. Other remnants of the flax industry survive, and many Saints tell amazing stories of working in the flax mills for about 17 cents a week (in the 1960's).