A group of learners from the Buffelsdraai and Osindisweni communities near Verulam just north of Durban spent a weekend at Cumberland Nature Reserve, a private reserve in the Table Mountain area just east of Pietermaritzburg, as a reward for growing over 250 trees each in the Indigenous trees for Life Programme, a livelihoods programme that sees children and adults from vulnerable communities learn to grow indigenous trees from seed and nurture them until they reach a certain height, at which point they trade them for goods.
Known as “tree-preneurs”, the young people aged between 10 and 18, learnt about the environment and for many of them, this was a first-time experience of a nature reserve. Manqoba Sabela is the Environmental Educator who takes the groups of tree-preneurs on these excursions. “The trips are to reward and motivate the tree-preneurs, we teach basic ecology and aim to create an understanding of conservation as a whole.”
“For this excursion we used biodiversity as a theme, as 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity.” said Sabela. The tree-preneurs went to a riverine forest area in the reserve and recorded all that they saw, from plants to insects and birds and animals, and looked at what biodiversity is. There was a hiking trail into a wilderness area where no urban sounds can be heard and the learners were asked to listen and think about how the sounds were different from their homes. Sphelele Majola, a seventeen year old from Buffelsdraai said: “I really enjoyed the hiking, it was fun and I saw lots of things such waterfalls and impala. I wish I lived in such as place where only nature things take place.”
Sabela says these trips are meant to be fun, but also expose young people to learning and to environments they might never otherwise experience. “The tree-preneurs have learnt the rewards of growing trees by being able to buy household goods for their families, and school uniforms and stationery for themselves. These trips are a further reward, but also teach them about what they are contributing to the environment by growing indigenous trees. They learn why an indigenous tree is better than an alien tree species and we explain the value of the trees being planted into their communities.”
Wildlands Conservation Trust runs the Indigenous Trees for Life programme in over 20 communities in KwaZulu Natal, and also plants the tree-preneurs’ trees into reforestation projects. One of these is in a buffer zone next to a landfill site in Buffelsdraai, near where this group of tree-preneurs live. Romeo Mxolisi Sibiya, is ten years old and lives in Osindisweni, and he enjoyed the biodiversity activity because “it showed me trees are important in our lives.”
The Bonitas Medical Fund, a long-standing supporter of the programme, provided funds in 2009 to the Wildlands Conservation Trust for the purchase of a Toyota Quantum, to transport the tree-preneurs on these environmental education excursions. Since September 2009 the “tree-preneur carrier” has taken more than 389 tree-preneurs on such visits, including these Buffelsdraai and Osindisweni teens.
WILDTRUST (registered as the Wildlands Conservation Trust - IT No: 4329/1991/PMB)