The Wildlands Conservation Trust received a huge boost for their Indigenous Trees for Life project this week, when DaimlerChrysler SA and Inyanga Motors Empangeni presented them with not only a vehicle and a substantial cheque, but also a newly refurbished office!
The Indigenous Trees for Life project is run by the Wildlands Conservation Trust, and focuses on giving underprivileged people, particularly orphaned children, the ability to literally grow their own money, and with it a future.
These “Tree-preneurs” are provided with basic training in the propagation of indigenous trees. They then collect seeds from their local areas and propagate them, nurturing them until they are large enough to be sold. Wildlands then collects the trees from them, and either pays them cash per tree, or barters the trees for a variety of goods such as food, clothes or even bicycles.
Wildlands has been amazed by the success of this programme, and to date there are over 1,200 “Tree-preneurs” who will grow over a quarter of a million indigenous trees this year. One example is Sibonelo Magwaza, a Grade 7 boy in Zululand, who has grown over 1,000 trees, which equates to over R6,000.
DaimlerChrysler SA heard about the project, and have become a major sponsor, their latest involvement being the donation of a 3-ton Mitsubishi Fuso Canter 4×4 truck that Indigenous Trees for Life will use to transport the trees. In the past this has proved a big expense to the project. At the same time DaimlerChrysler SA donated a cheque to the value of R225,000 to the project, while the local dealer, Inyanga Motors in Empangeni, has donated a fully refurbished office to the programme, and has undertaken to perform all the service and maintenance work on Indigenous Trees for Life’s new vehicle.
Obviously the major benefit of this project is the upliftment of the disadvantaged, who are now able to grow their own future. But, as CEO of Wildlands Dr Andrew Venter said, another important consequence of this project, and others run by the Wildlands Conservation Trust, is that they help to preserve our heritage, which is under constant threat from the realities of poverty.
[Reproduced with kind permission from DieselCar Magazine]
WILDTRUST (registered as the Wildlands Conservation Trust - IT No: 4329/1991/PMB)