Starting August this year, the innovative programme is expanding into another three provinces with projects set to start in the Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo regions. Wildlands aims to use the new projects to spread its roots across the country and develop networks and partnerships with other local conservation organisations to effect greater national biodiversity conservation and environmental awareness.
With faith funding from Investec, Unilever South Africa, and DaimlerChrysler (now Mercedes Benz SA) Indigenous Trees for Life began as a small grass-roots initiative in 2004 in the Jobe and Khula Village communites, situated between Mkhuze Game reserve and iSimangaliso Wetland Park. Facilitators taught community members to propagate indigenous trees, which the Trust then bought from them for use in greening projects. KwaJobe has a population of around 20 000 people, most living in poverty. Poverty will always be a threat to conservation because when one has an empty stomach, any and all resources at one’s disposal are utilised, regardless of their intrinsic value, or whether they sit behind a forbidden fence line. The vision behind the programme, and behind much of Wildlands’ work, is to reverse this threat by finding solutions that meet both the environmental and human needs in this country.
“Indigenous Trees for Life has expanded significantly since 2004 and we now work in 18 communities around KwaZulu-Natal”, said Programme Manager Charmaine Veldman. Charmaine and her team work with local schools to identify the communities’ most vulnerable children. “These children are the poorest in their communities and are often orphans or from single-parent homesteads”, said Veldman. The programme now also runs 5 community ‘Green Team’s’ who remove alien plants, plant indigenous trees and recycle rubbish collected from around their communities. The recently launched ‘Greening Your Future’ initiative has anchored the sustainability of the programme by using the trees grown by the ‘tree-preneurs’ to restore degraded forest; says Veldman: “the CO2 the reforestation initiatives will sequester, will ultimately be traded on the stock exchange to environmentally conscious corporates wanting to offset their carbon footprints. These funds will then be used to support the next cycle of planting”, she said.
Unilever South Africa initiated the national expansion of the programme by recognising the synergies between Indigenous Trees for Life and two other initiatives the company supports outside the province. One is an HIV/AIDS orphan’s support programme in Vosloorus, called ‘Thokomala’ and the other a business and income-generating support initiative in partnership with the Development Bank of South Africa, called ‘Reach the People’, in Humelani, Phalaborwa. With support from Unilever, Wildlands are planning to establish Indigenous Trees for Life nodes in these communities through the existing networks. Nelspruit is the third area outside the province where Wildlands is hoping that ‘tree-preneurs’ will take root with support from long-time supporter of the Trust, Old Mutual.
Other developments the Trust hopes to roll out in these and eventually every Indigenous Trees for Life node include a community challenge (as part of the Trusts sports fundraising initiative the Bonitas Wild Series) and an environmental education rewards programme. The community challenge concept was piloted in eSikhawini, outside Richards Bay with a full-scale duathlon which the local tree-preneurs participated in with their newly ‘purchased’ bicycles (they ‘paid’ 150 trees for their specially designed bikes and helmet). MTN are aiming to sponsor the cost of a further 2000 bikes a year for the next three years through the Trusts partnership with the Qubheka initiative. The environmental education rewards programme will give children extra incentive to grow more trees by offering rewards for their contribution to conservation. Starting from day visits to places like the St Lucia Croc Centre or the various WESSA operations, to overnight visits to game reserves, to four-day wilderness trails.
CEO of the Wildlands Conservation Trust, Dr Andrew Venter, spoke of the significance of the programmes growth and national expansion for the Trust: “We are really excited to be taking Indigenous Trees for Life nationally. It’s a phenomenal programme that brings real livelihood support to the poorest of the poor whilst growing environmental awareness. The roll out of the programme will also provide us with a foundation for expanding the activities of the trust within these communities and ultimately achieving our vision of conserving South Africa’s biodiversity.
WILDTRUST (registered as the Wildlands Conservation Trust - IT No: 4329/1991/PMB)