Swopping trees for essentials
A RECORD-BREAKING tree planting event or Tree-A-Thon is being planned for Arbor Week, September 1-7, with environmental NPO Wildlands announcing this week that they are aiming to plant 100 000 indigenous trees.
And it’s not just about planting trees, but also providing desperately needed food or school uniforms, or even a water tanker in poverty-stricken communities.
Wildlands launched their Trees for Life Project in 2004 in Mkhuze where community members planted and grew trees which were exchanged for livelihood support like groceries, building materials or school needs.
Wildlands Strategic Marketing Manager Buyi Makhoba said that in the past 12 years, the barter-based project has spread countrywide to include communities in Mpumalanga and the Western Cape, as well as within KZN.
More than a million trees are now being planted every year.
“Our community members or ‘treepreneurs’ find the seeds of trees in their areas and plant them, so we have trees that are specifically suitable to an area, growing there. When the tree reaches a certain height, it has a certain value and we collect it from the treepreneur and they get a voucher for what ever they need,” said Makhoba.
It is a bartering system which has grown exponentially with treepreneurs earning a variety of goods, even water tankers.
Makhoba said they had just added on an off-shoot project in which second-hand clothes were collected by Wildlands, with those donating the clothes receiving a tree. The clothes are given to ‘greenpreneurs’ who have grown the trees and they can either sell them or use them.
“It’s all about recycling and it underpins our vision in a sustainable future for all,” said Makhoba.
Wildlands will launch the Tree-A-Thon on September 1 in Cornubia in Durban where their goal is to plant 5 000 trees to start the tree-planting record attempt.
South Africa celebrates Arbor Week in the first week of September annually.