In South Africa, we like to do things differently, so instead of celebrating Arbor Day, we have an entire week to celebrate planting trees. South Africa celebrates Arbor Week in the first week of September every year, and it is the opportune time to call on South Africans, schools, businesses and organisations to participate in community ‘greening’ events.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s call for the planting of ten million trees for the next five years in South Africa will be echoed during the country’s 2021 Arbor Week, with initiatives taking place across the country and calls for communities to participate.
Why should we celebrate Arbor Week?
Trees offer more than aesthetic and ornamental value but play a vital role in producing the oxygen we breathe. It has become common knowledge that the climate is changing, and greening landscapes is an important defence against the effects of climate change thanks to their role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Many environments have been left barren due to the effects of desertification and urbanisation. In the past, trees were not planted in township areas, and this has an adverse effect, where a barren urban landscape increases your risk of exposure to the effects of climate change.
Well with South Africa’s city’s set to experience rising temperatures, trees will play an ever more important role in cooling urban spaces. Community mobilisation is therefore important in ensuring that we green our landscapes, and there are ample ways you can make a difference.
National Arbor Week serves to promote awareness for the need to plant and maintain indigenous trees throughout South Africa, especially for the many disadvantaged communities who often live in barren and water-stressed areas. Arbor Week aims to:
- further public knowledge of indigenous trees
- stress the necessity of planting trees
- contribute to a greener and more sustainable future
How can you participate
There are many ways you can participate, with a good chance of some celebration going down your neck of the woods. Deputy Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment, Maggi Sotyu, will launch the national Arbor Week campaign in Richards Bay.
The department will officiate tree planting activities in the Richards Bay area, with a tree-planting event at the Mthombothi Street public park.
In events elsewhere, Johannesburg City Parks plan to rejuvenate Brixton Cemetary with the planting of 2 000 indigenous trees to launch Arbor Week.
Greenpop, an NGO that have planted more than 150 000 trees since 2010 has the option of donating a tree for R120, where they can plant, monitor, and maintain a tree in their forest restoration projects in Sub-Saharan Africa.
There is growing impetus to plant more trees, where the City of Cape Town launched a tree mapping project to classify the city as an urban forest. According to the city’s brief, the UN classifies an urban forest as an area with over 10% tree canopy cover, and Cape Town’s canopy cover currently stands at 7%.
So what’s keeping you from getting out this week to get actively involved in tree planting? Start small, you can affect change outside your front door by planting trees in your garden pr public parks.
There are cumulative benefits from planting trees and even if we are not here tomorrow, the tree will be there to take care of generations to come, so get digging!
Pictures: Juliette Bisset/ Greenpop
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