By Elissa Sonnenberg Edoardo Zandri knows what it's like to live in a land that time forgot. For more than three years, Zandri and a team of scientists have lived on the island of Socotra, working to preserve a fragile piece of ecological history that offers rare insights into global biodiversity. Socotra, part of the Republic of Yemen, sits in the Gulf of Aden. Its villagers, plants and animals carry on as they did thousands of years ago, untouched by the outside world.
Coastal dwellers eat fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Those who live inland harvest dates and use aloe, frankincense and myrrh for healing. Development Programme-Global Environment Facility Biodiversity Project in Socotra and works with the Environmental Protection Council of Yemen. Together, they have established a landmark conservation effort on the island. Scientists estimate that between 6 and 10 million years ago, three small islands and Socotra, which is comparable in size to Corsica, drifted from the continent of Africa into the isolated waters between the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. Monsoon winds and the lack of an obvious port kept visitors at bay until about 2,000 years ago, when settlers built homes in small villages and on isolated coastal land.