October 11, 2004
By Anish Abraham
A TREE is to be planted in Soweto for each of the delegates who participated in an environmental conference in Johannesburg from 5 to 7 October.
Food and Trees for Africa, along with the organisers of the Enviromedia 2004 Conference, has pledged to plant 120 indigenous trees around the township - enhancing ongoing efforts to green the area.
The conference, held at the Parktonian Hotel in Braamfontein, was formally opened by minister of environmental affairs and tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, with George Monbiot, author and columnist for British newspaper The Guardian, presenting the keynote address.
"The environment is not something to be debated by intellectuals, but by all South Africans," Van Schalkwyk told the delegates - academics, journalists, and representatives from various businesses and environmental NGOs.
The minister added: "It is one of the most wonderful challenges to work with the environment and to move environmental issues up the agenda."
Several environmental hotspots - the industrial areas in south Durban, in Vereeniging and Vanderbijlpark, as well Cape Town - had been identified as matters of priority.
South Africa, he said, was busy putting in place legislation to deal with current environmental issues, such as the air quality bill, and concrete targets were being set, some stricter than World Health Organisation guidelines.
Van Schalkwyk said the department was in the process of setting up a Green Scorpions unit to deal with perpetrators of environmental crimes. The unit would use specialised environmental courts, which tended to have a higher rate of conviction than the general courts.
"When we make sure the judges understand fully the environmental legislation in place, we have higher chances of getting people convicted," Van Schalkwyk added.
Monbiot warned of complacency, saying that the global environmental scenario was worse than people assumed as people tended "to portray environmental issues as something that 'might happen' rather than something that is happening at the moment".
As part of the conference, on Friday 8 October some of the delegates were taken on a tour of the city by the Johannesburg Development Agency, and witnessed the planting in Soweto of the conference's first tree.
The focus of the bus tour was on developments aimed at upgrading vulnerable areas, improving the environment and cleaning up the city.
First stop was the Constitution Hill Precinct, where Herbert Prins, the project's heritage consultant, outlined the brief history of the Old Fort and spoke of the current projects under way. The Constitutional Court, for example, uses environmentally friendly methods to cool and heat the building, including the use of rainwater.
Then it was off to the Greenhouse Environmental People's Centre in Joubert Park, where delegates were shown how eco-friendly materials were used in the construction of the building.
Information co-ordinator of the Greenhouse Project, Dorah Lebelo, explained how the building was constructed out of earth and straw and how cooking was done using solar cookers. The centre also grows herbs used by traditional healers at the Mai Mai market.
The final stop on the tour was the Kliptown Peoples' Centre. The visitors were taken to the Klipspruit River, where they watched workers cleaning the area and removing waste material, which is sent for recycling, from the river.
Environmental consultant, Henry Phungo, said the programme began by holding awareness campaigns in the community "to inform them about the work we are doing and how they can assist".
The Klipspruit project has been running for the past three years and the council will assess whether to extend the contract in 2005.
Phungo pointed out that part of the programme involved educating residents on how to grow vegetables alongside the river, making better use of the scarce water resources in the region.
The finale of the tour was the planting of a tree on behalf of the conference delegates. This task was undertaken by William Mabasa of the Kruger National Park. "We would like to say that we are bringing parks to the people," said Kristina Gubic, one of the conference organisers.
Conference programme co-ordinator Hugh Tyrrell explained the reason behind the tree-planting project. "Air and road travel are major contributors to gases causing global warming so we will offset some of the negative impacts by planting trees."
The CEO of Food and Trees for Africa, Juenesse Park, added that the trees will "green dusty and impoverished settlements".
The organisation has been planting trees in townships and other impoverished areas for the past 14 years, based on community requests.
Most of the trees from the conference will be planted in Kliptown. "As part of our Trees for Homes programme, these trees will be planted in people's yards as they are in the best position to take care of them," Park said.
The NGO had found that people were beginning to see the benefits of having trees on their property. "Now that quite a few people own their houses, they see that having trees and gardens increases the beauty and the value of their properties," Park said.
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