There is also an official forestry department in Port Sudan that regulates the use of forest resources in the Beja territory. Cutting down live trees is banned by the forestry department, but our informants comment on its lack of efficiency SB202190 manufacturer in protecting AZD3965 acacias in the Sudanese RSH. The effectiveness of tribal law in safeguarding many important aspects of traditional desert livelihoods has, however, been well documented (e.g. Kennett 1925; Al-Krenawi and Graham 1999; Stewart 2006). Our sources concur that from early times, tribal control has successfully protected trees from destruction, and in most of the area still does. Without these laws there would be

more opportunities for abuse, including the overcutting of living trees that would threaten the viability of the tree populations and thereby the pastoral livelihood. People protect acacias for many more reasons than fear of tribal law. Our fieldwork has revealed numerous ways in which acacias are culturally valued.

Some trees even become important “personalities” on the cultural landscape, earning extra protection. A. tortilis can live for several centuries (Andersen and Krzywinski 2007a 961; Goslar et al. 2013), and as long as people perpetuate PLX-4720 oral traditions they pass along tree biographies. In some cases a man explicitly identifies a tree with himself: for example four generations ago a man named Ruwa‘iy of the Ma‘aza Ashhab clan pointed to his favorite acacia and said, “If anyone cuts it I will cut him!” This “autographed

tree” was henceforth Ribose-5-phosphate isomerase known as Sayaalit Ruwa‘iy and had special status until its death in the 1990s. The place it occupied is still identified as a landmark in Ma‘aza conversation and wayfinding (Hobbs 2014). Personalization of trees is characteristic of Ababda and Beja cultural landscapes as well. An Ababda man of the Saliim clan recited some of his peoples’ acacia “nicknames,” including Abu Jamal or “Father of the Camel” for the acacia under which a camel died and Abu Kakar or “Father of the Viper” in the shade of which snakes were encountered. The Hadandowa have a tree called Ohaj Tawaay after a revered spiritual leader named Ohaj, and their “Omda’s Tree” is named for one of their tribal leaders. Some of the most important cultural components of the nomads’ lives are kinship, faith, and dualities of permissible/forbidden and honorable/shameful. Aspects of these are prominent in establishing the acacia among the Hadandawa, Amar Ar, Bishaari, Ababda and Ma‘aza as a “cultural keystone species,” defined by Garibaldi and Turner (2004) as “culturally salient species that shape in a major way the cultural identity of a people, as reflected in the fundamental roles these species have in diet, materials, medicine, and/or spiritual practices.” Acacias feature prominently in important stages and places of the pastoralist’s life. In most Islamic cultures there is segregation of space by gender, with public space being male and private space female.