This week the Jobe community with the help of the Wildlands Conservation Trust, planted the first of hundreds of thousands of trees along the Mkhuze River floodplain. This will form what is scientifically known as a carbon sink, a concentration of newly planted vegetation that will offset the stripping of vegetation, and excess burning of fossil fuels in other parts of the world.
‘Greening Your Future’ is the aptly named title of the initiative. It grew out of Wildlands’ very successful livelihoods programme, Indigenous Trees for Life. The aim of the initiative is to develop ‘carbon offsets’ or sinks that allow underprivileged communities to utilise local knowledge and resources to improve their livelihoods, whilst mitigating climate change.
Once refined, these methods will then be rolled out into other local areas (three other sites have already been identified) and then internationally through Africa and South East Asia in partnership with the Living Lakes Foundation. The development of this methodology is being made possible with support from global conservation agency WWF, and with funding from the Rand Merchant Bank Fund (through the First Rand Foundation). “Two years of planning has come together this week and it’s shifted the project from a great concept to a reality on the ground”, said Wildlands CEO Dr Andrew Venter.
The Indigenous Trees for Life programme was first piloted in Jobe, Zululand and so it seems fitting that this breakthrough development is cited in this area as well. Indigenous Trees for Life is centred around a network of ‘tree-preneurs’ who grow indigenous trees, which they then sell back to Wildlands or barter for donated goods. Previously this project was supported mostly by corporate donor funding but with the introduction of the ‘Greening Your Future’ concept, a more sustainable solution to the programme has been created.
The concept is really quite simple. Trees that have been grown through the Indigenous Trees for Life programme are being planted out into pre-determined sites owned by the Jobe community members, which will collectively form a carbon sink. The first site identified belongs to Mrs Sbongile Myeni, a subsistence farmer who will plant and care for the indigenous trees. Mrs Myeni and the other land-owners are paid for each tree they plant and for every tree that survives per year thereafter.
“Wildlands already has such a good relationship with the Jobe community, and that’s what’s going to make this project successful”, says Sarisha Ramanand, who joined the Trust in June last year as their ‘Carbon Sink Development Manager’. The project also addresses the socio-economic needs of the area as Ramanand explains, “the benefits to the community are of course the income which is so desperately needed, but in the long-term the rehabilitation of the river banks ensure their soils and crops are protected from the periodic flooding in the area as well”, she said.
In terms of the science Ramanand had this to say: “This is obviously a steep learning curve, but there are established methodologies generated from research in the Amazon and central Africa forests, so it’s really just a matter of adapting these to the different vegetation and to include the community aspect and the smaller plots of land”, she said. “Our priority is ensuring that the methods we use are scientifically solid because the validity of future calculations and results depends on this”. The next big step will be the measuring the same sites in four years’ time to see how much carbon has accrued, i.e. how much has been absorbed by the soil and vegetation, thereby reducing the amount in the atmosphere.
“To the best of our knowledge this hasn’t been tried anywhere else in the world”, said Dr. Venter, “there have only been large scale planting projects. It’s definitely the first of its kind in South Africa and is without a doubt one of the most innovative and exciting conservation initiatives in this country, we hope there will be many more that follow us and learn from it”, he said. Venter went on to mention their key involvement with the Climate Action Partnership (or CAP), a partnership of six of SA’s leading conservation NGO’s who aim to raise awareness and share learning to advance the mitigation of climate change in the country. Other projects he said that were researching the carbon offset potential of land-restoration include the Spekboom project in Baviaanskloof run by the Wilderness Foundation and a Peace Parks initiative in southern and East Africa looking at the carbon value associated with the effective management of large scale transfrontier areas.
‘Greening Your Future’ is a really good indicator of what is possible and as the old English idiom goes, “mighty oaks from little acorns grow” (or in this case mostly acacia’s from little seeds). This project might just be the seed that grows a forest for South Africa’s contribution to climate change.
WILDTRUST (registered as the Wildlands Conservation Trust - IT No: 4329/1991/PMB)