Wildlands Conservation Trust is very happy to announce that we will be the South African partners of Live Earth in support of the Dow Live Earth Run for Water, a series of events happening around the world on April 18, 2010. The events will feature 6 km run/walks, water education villages and concerts, raising money and awareness to help solve the global water crisis. The South African 6km run/walk will be held at SPIER Wine Estate, Cape Town.
The global water crisis affects all of us. One in eight people don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. In Africa, Latin America and Asia women and children are forced to walk 6km each day to secure water that is likely unsuitable for drinking. But the water crisis is not only limited to developing nations. More and more of us live in water-scarce areas, and climate change is making the water crisis more severe. The Live Earth events will bring the world together – featuring solutions and ways that individuals and communities can save water, save energy, and save lives!
All funds raised from the Dow Live Earth Run for Water Cape Town event will go towards Wildlands’ Indigenous Trees for Life programme. The programme consists of a network of poor and vulnerable community members who grow indigenous trees to improve their livelihoods. The ‘tree-preneurs’ care for the plants and then trade them, at ‘tree stores’ for food, bicycles, garden tools etc. These trees are then planted into reforestation projects. The funds from the event will be used to purchase rainwater tanks, guttering systems, wheelbarrows, water drums and other tools for water collection to be traded at the tree-stores. The programme was started in 2004 in KwaJobe in northern Zululand with just 300 tree-preneurs. There are currently over 2 500 tree-preneurs, spread across 20 communities in South Africa who grow around 300 000 indigenous trees per year.
“Our aim is to give our tree-preneurs and their families better access to drinking water and to reduce
the amount of time and energy they spend collecting water; we hope to reach at least 6000 people with the funds raised from this event”, said Wildlands Communications Manager, Simone Dale. “We also have Green Teams who remove alien vegetation and plant indigenous trees in community greening and forest restoration projects. This has many environmental benefits, not least of which is a decrease in the consumption of our precious water resources.” Wildlands is also a partner of the Climate Action Partnership (CAP), which is working on numerous projects aimed at adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change – something likely to be a huge contributor to the water crisis in coming years.
“We’re absolutely thrilled to be part of this global initiative; water security will without a doubt become one of the most important environmental and social stability issues for Africa and South Africa in particular in the future” said Wildlands CEO, Dr Andrew Venter. “We’re confident that this event will help raise awareness of the serious water challenges we have, and contribute to sustainable solutions around the world.”
For more information visit:
www.localhost/import-data-post – Local event information
www.liveearth.org – International event information
www.akvo.org – Project Information
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WILDTRUST (registered as the Wildlands Conservation Trust - IT No: 4329/1991/PMB)