The Cork: Properties, Uses, Fauna, Flora, Threats and Action

Cork Oak (Quercus suber, Lineu). Credits to Mafalda Paiva.

About Cork

Cork is a natural vegetable tissue: the outer bark of the Cork Oak tree and not it's trunk, as people might think. Harvested each 9 years from the "sobrais" or "montados" (Portuguese words for the Cork Mediterranean landscape and habitat) during the hot Mediterranean season, no tree is ever cut to extract it. It is, though, regenerable, sustainable and an important income for families, enterprises and nations, at local, regional and national scales. At Portugal, the activity employes 12000 people and is responsible for 3% of the GDP with 5.500 Million of EUR (7.6 Billion USD). Some trees can live 200 years.

Cork properties.

Cork is a noble material by excellency. Flexible and elastic, it is all natural, renewable, recyclable and upcyclable. Its properties of impermeability to liquids and gases, insulation, fire resistance, non allergic and abrasion resistance make it an excellent raw material for very diverse uses. The most know is, of course, the production of corks for wines and champagnes (around 40 millions of bottle corks are produced daily in Portugal).

Distribution of the Cork Oak Tree and the Cork around the world.

World distribution of Cork Oak. Credits to Lynne Diligent.

Cork Oak Tree is an endemic plant of the Western Mediterranean basin, occupying almost a 2.700.000 ha (around 2.7 Million football fields = 6.671.845 acres) area. In Southern Europe, we found it's principal worldwide population of Southern Iberia, mainly in South Portugal. Portugal hosts around 40% of all distribution range, 70% of it at Rivers Tejo and Sado basins and at Algarve (Monchique and Caldeirão) hills. Other European countries with important forests are Spain and Italy. France, Croatia and Montenegro have coastal residual or non-dense populations (author's personal observation). Romania has some very localized introduced projects.

At the South Mediterranean basin, at North African countries, it is present in Morocco (Mamora protected forest, with serious health and surviving issues and at Rif and Atlas Mountains, with much more healthier populations: author's personal observation), at the Tell Atlas in Algeria and at Ain Kroumir and Mogod in Tunisia.

Uses of Cork. 

Cork is used at spaceships by NASA. Credits to WICANDERS.

Not known to everyone, starts to be remarked by their impressive alternative uses besides the famous corks that seal most bottles of wines and champagnes worldwide, including uses as diverse as clothing and accessories, spaceships, aeronautics industry, sports, home construction, interior decoration and even to control oil spills. And of course, as the raw material of impressive art works . 

The use of cork for other applications than corks is not new. Buildings in southern Spain with cork in a city of the Bronze Age were identified. Already the Roman civilization used it for roofing and for lining the helmets of centurions. At the Age of Discovery, many ships and caravels used various tools cork.

Not just the Cork, "a whole forest in a bottle". 

Iberian Lynx (Linx pardinus), one of the inhabitants of Mediterranean evergreen woods: the most endangered wildcat of the whole world.

Cork Oak forests are the habitat of thousands of species. Among them, some rare and endangered, as the Iberian Lynx - with remaining wild populations just in Spain, the Iberian Imperial Eagle - at Spain, Portugal and Morocco (author's personal observations), the Barbary Macaque - at Morocco and Algeria (Libya and Gibraltar have non forest populations), the Barbary Deer (at Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) and many others (see facts in numbers below). 

The Mediterranean basin is one of the 25 most important hotspots of world's biodiversity. A large extent of the area is occupied by oak forests. Cork Oak forest is the "green lung" of the Mediterranean Basin. 

Some facts in numbers (Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities, Nature Journal of Science):

a) As many as 44% of all species of vascular plants and 35% of all species in four vertebrate groups are confined to 25 hotspots comprising only 1.4% of the land surface of the Earth (2.123.000 km²);

b) The Mediterranean Basin Hotspot occupies 110.000 km² (5,2% of those key areas) and Cork Oak forest occupies 27000 km² (25% of the hotspot); 

c) The Mediterranean Basin has 25.000 plant species, 13.000 of them endemic (4,3% of the world's plants);

d) The Mediterranean Basin has 770 vertebrate species (345 birds, 184 mammals, 179 reptiles and 62 amphibians), 235 of them endemic (0,9% of the world's vertebrates);

c) Occupying a bit more than 1% of conservation priority areas worldwide (which makes it's conservation even easier), Cork Oak forests have one of the most important concentrations of land diversity worldwide. 

In fact, among the 25 identified hotspots, the Mediterranean Basin is the third most important one in terms of endemic plants (13.000), second only to Tropical Andes and Sundaland and it is also the 9th most important area in terms of endemic vertebrates (235);

Those numbers show very obviously how important is the Mediterranean Basin and Cork Oak forest (as one of the most coherent and intact habitats on it) to world's biodiversity conservation. More than an obvious motive of joy, it is an enormous responsibility not to protect it for future generations and in the name of global conservation and the planet's health.

Threats (credits to WWF)

"Cork Oak landscapes face many threats, including fires, forest clearance for agriculture or faster-growing plants (Eucalyptus and Pines), climate change, disease and over-grazing.

But, one major threat comes from the growing use of plastic or metal substitutes for cork stoppers for wine bottles, cork's main market.

This could erode the market value of cork and the incentive to utilize and preserve Cork Oak forests"

Don't wait to act until it will be too late!

a) Next time you demand for a wine bottle, ask if it is real or synthetic cork. Leave the synthetic ones away. Anyway, if you do like wine, good ones have natural corks. The others are just bad imitations (read this article about it);

b) Buy and use cork products. You will be wearing a tissue or carrying a craft which material have a long life history at the wildlife; during decades "it saws" spring birds and their nests, survived to summer fires and helped the economic sustainable use and continuity of a rare, unique and beautiful landscape human-managed that is a real world heritage and a jewel of Nature; See our Cork products, with a awesome video, and share our website.

c) Share the message (sharing buttons below);

d) Help non-profit organizations on the goal of Mediterranean Cork Oak forest conservation;

Any doubt?

Be welcome to contact me. I will try to do my best to answer and/or forward you to experts and organizations to engage with.  

Note: Bibliographic references, when online, are linked directly to sources through the text.

Author: Miguel Caldeira Pais, Biologist


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