Picture taken by: Maryann Rivers-Moore
The date of 2 February each year was selected for World Wetlands Day because it marks the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on 2 February in 1971. Every year the Ramsar Convention, as it is now known, selects a theme on specific types of wetlands or aspects of wetland management. The theme for this year is Forests for water and wetlands, chosen to tie in with 2011 being the United Nations International Year of Forests.
Forests are linked to the provision of goods and services such as timber, food and protection from wind and soil erosion. They also provide vital ecosystem functions like watershed and flood control, carbon storage and production of oxygen as well as air pollution filtering. The conservation of wetlands is directly linked to healthy forests in catchments areas, where water drains into streams, rivers and lakes.
The Greening Your Future Programme, Wildlands’ forest restoration programme and climate change mitigation initiative, works towards restoring or establishing forests and building carbon sinks while focusing on community upliftment. Projects have to date been established at the Ongoye Forest and Mkhuze Floodplain in Zululand and Inanda Mountain near Durban. Wildlands is also the implementing partner in the Buffelsdraai Landfill Site Community Reforestation Project run by the eThekwini Municipality.
The Mkhuze River floodplain is a vital catchment area for the iSimangaliso wetland system (a World Heritage Site) which contains dune, swamp and coastal forests. Wildlands began the The Mkhuze Floodplain Reforestation project after developing its Indigenous Trees for Life Programme in KwaJobe, a community living and farming on the floodplain on the northern boundary of Mkhuze Game Reserve.
Through this livelihoods programme over 60 000 indigenous trees have been grown since 2004 and exchanged for goods such as food and clothing. In 2007 Wildlands engaged KwaJobe farmers, and there are currently over 300 landowners involved in planting these indigenous trees on their land, receiving a fee for planting and a further fee for every tree that is nurtured and maintained per quarter thereafter.
Mr Thulani Mafuleka is a Field Monitor for Greening Your Future in the Mkhuze reforestation programme. “Before the project I was not aware of how important trees were; I was cutting trees left and right. Trees protect us from wind, my house can be taken away by a strong wind, but trees act as a windbreak. Also some indigenous trees use less water than alien plants, and I did not know that before.”
Mr Andrew Whitley, Programme Manager for the Greening Your Future Programme, explains the Wildlands Conservation Trust’s vision for the project. “We want to plant as many trees as possible onto the Mkhuze floodplain with the aim of restoring some of the lost ecosystem functions and create a buffer to protect the forest that still remains in the area. It has taken time to engage the broader community to garner interest in and support for the project. We are now in a position to target particular areas on the floodplain.”
WILDTRUST (registered as the Wildlands Conservation Trust - IT No: 4329/1991/PMB)