In a secluded valley in southern Chile, a lone alerce tree stands above the canopy of an ancient forest.

Known as Alerce in Spanish and Lahuen in the native Mapuche, these tall evergreen trees are native to the southern Andes in Chile and Argentina, and though they grow to more than 60 m (196 ft) tall, they do so very slowly, gaining just a millimeter in diameter every year.

Alerce Milenario or Gran Abuelo is the largest tree in Chile's Alerce Costero National Park. While it has been on the list of oldest trees, this Alerce tree (Fitzroya cupressoides) is now rivalling others to be possibly the oldest tree in the world.

Jonathan Barichivich and Antonio Lara, of the Austral University of Chile, bored a partial hole into the tree as far as possible without damaging it. They used an increment borer—a T-shaped drill to excise a narrow cylinder of wood without harming the tree. The partial plug of wood yielded approximately 2,400 tightly spaced growth rings. They then used statistical modelling based on data from 2,400 trees. Barichivich's age estimate for the Alerce Milenario was 5,484 years old and with certainty that the tree is at least 5,000 years old.

Alerces contain special resins that help them stave off decomposition, even when buried or resting in water, which is a useful trait when it comes to longevity. Unfortunately, this and characteristics like a straight grain, elasticity, lightness and aesthetic appeal have made alerces a very desirable construction material over a considerable period of time.

Lara, a professor at the Faculty of Forest Sciences and Natural Resources at Chile’s Austral University in the southern city of Valdivia, has been able to prove that alerces can absorb carbon from the atmosphere and trap it for between 1,500 and 2,000 years in standing dead trees. Buried alerce trunks can hold carbon for more than 4,000 years.

Today, alerces are listed as endangered and can be found in staggered populations across a southern stretch of land starting at the cordillera on Chile's Pacific coast and rolling up and over the Andes into Argentina. This means there a few options to visit the native trees, with the massive Valdivian Coastal Reserve offering the biggest alerce bounty, though it's not exactly easy to access.

Al Jazeera video showing the tree in more depth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBHQ4HnrxO4

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