Reports on the imminent effects of climate change are now mainstream and the warnings somewhat overwhelming: rising temperatures and sea levels, mass extinction of plants and animals, epidemics and natural disasters. We all know now that greenhouse gasses (mainly CO2) are the culprits and that industry, fossil fuel – powered transport and the destruction of the world’s rainforests are the largest contributors. So what are we, as South Africans, going to do about it? South Africa’s leading Non-profit conservation organisations are joining forces with international activists and leading the way.
CAP [Climate Action Partnership] was formed recently with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between some of South African leading conservation NGO’s. Initiated by Conservation International South Africa (CI) and with partners The Wildlands Conservation Trust, the Wilderness Foundation, and the Botanical Society of South Africa, CAP aims to raise awareness of global warming in the country, and to mobilise South African’s and South African Business to start taking responsibility for their green house gas emissions. CAP’s partners are certainly leading by example – all have committed to making their core business carbon neutral within 3 years. And they’re competing for first in line.
CI’s Fundraising Manager Dr. Amy Spriggs says: “CAP aims to promote the climate change message and provide a platform for discussion and debate around the impact on South African bio-diversity”. And what better way to do this than through music – the universal language. On 7/7/07, Live Earth will be a defining musical event with more than 100 headliners performing live on all 7 continents and being broadcast globally through television, radio, web, wireless and other media platforms. These artists hope to inspire an audience of more than 2 billion people worldwide to make meaningful and lasting changes in their lives to turn the tide on global warming. Johannesburg will host the African concert and CAP will be assisting with ensuring a South African – relevant message and a carbon-neutral South African concert.
CAP, through Live Earth, hopes more organisations and individuals will take the plunge and commit to becoming carbon neutral. Kevin Wall, the Founder of Live Earth and former Worldwide Executive Producer of Live 8, which brought together one of the largest audiences in history to combat poverty, is positive about the partnership: “Live Earth, together with CAP, will provide simple actions and tools that, if applied on a mass scale, will have significant impact on combating the climate crisis globally and its effects on South African bio-diversity”, he said. “A global movement of people making meaningful changes in their lives will give companies they do business with and the governments who represent them, no choice but to enact positive long-term changes themselves”.
Live Earth will launch an ongoing campaign to combat the climate crisis that will be led by The Alliance for Climate Protection, chaired by Al Gore, and international environmental NGO’s. Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, a stark, factual, call-to-action documentary, has sparked action all over the world, and South African’s are starting to take notice. What we want now are South African solutions to South African problems. CAP, together with local experts, are committed to ensuring more research on the effects of climate change on bio-diversity in South Africa, and finding innovative solutions to counteract this damage.
So what is a carbon footprint and what does it mean to be carbon neutral? Everyone has a “carbon footprint”. We all use cars, or busses, or planes. We use electricity, or gas, or fire if we’re not so lucky, and we create tonnes of waste every year – plastics, metals, cans, the list goes on. All this contributes either directly or indirectly to the warming of the atmosphere and the earth’s increasing inability to keep up with the carbon we’re emitting.
To make your self, or your business, carbon neutral, you must first calculate your carbon footprint – or CO2 emissions. You can use Conservation International’s carbon calculator to do this – available on their website at www.conservation.org. (CAP will have a South African – relevant calculator available shortly.) Possible reductions then need to be identified and acted on (“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” as Jack Johnson, a popular American singer, would encourage us to do). Remaining emissions must then be offset through reliable, high quality carbon projects e.g. through indigenous forest rehabilitation and maintenance. CAP has committed to raising funds for the development of projects like these, one of which the Wildlands Conservation Trust has already established through its Indigenous Trees for Life programme.
Indigenous Trees for Life is a sustainable livelihoods initiative in KwaZulu Natal where vulnerable children are taught to grow indigenous trees which they then sell back to the Wildlands Conservation Trust as a source of income. There are now over 1300 “Tree-preneurs” who produced more than 200 000 saplings just last year. Trees produced from this project are going to be used to rehabilitate the Mkhuze River floodplain and Riverine Forest in the first bona fide Forest Rehabilitation Carbon Sink project ever to be undertaken in South Africa.
WILDTRUST (registered as the Wildlands Conservation Trust - IT No: 4329/1991/PMB)