The Madifha (Sagole) Big Tree is the biggest known baobab tree in the world with a girth of 34 meters. The tree is managed by the Madifha-Zwigodini community who allow visitors to the tree every day for a small entry fee.
Unfortunately, there are some insensitive visitors, that when no one is looking, spray their names on the magnificent bows of the tree. This has been an ongoing problem with repeated incidents over the last two decades. Finally, the community decided that two interventions would help 1) to put a fence up around the tree to more tightly control manage access and 2) to remove the graffiti. For this they reached out to me for help.
Graffiti spray painted onto the branches of the Big Tree
I visited the tree on 8th April 2026 and helped plan where the new fence would go and supplied the community with funds, from the Baobab Foundation, to cover the costs of the fencing materials and the fencing contractors’ costs. Secondly, after an internet search on how to remove graffiti from trees, I brought along an arsenal of products. This included eco-friendly paint stripper, non-eco-friendly paint stripper, metal scrapers, scrubbing brushes, sandpaper and a battery-powered drill fitted with an abrasive brush.
We found that the paint strippers did not work very well. The “melted” paint had to be wiped off with a damp cloth and still left paint residue smeared across the bark of the tree. The scraper, scrubbing brush and sandpaper removed some of the paint (with quite a bit of elbow grease), but it these implements did not easily reach into the cracks where the paint had penetrated.
Paint stripper removing grafiti
Scrubbing brush removing grafiti
Metal scraper taking graffiti off
The best solution was the use of the battery-powered drill fitted with and abrasive brush. This very easily and quickly removed the paint and managed to get into the cracks.
The bark that is removed by the brush will simply regrow – this is one of the things that makes baobabs so unique. A very successful end to our experiments!
Using battery powered drill with abrasive brush – this was the most effective in removing the graffiti
