November 7, 2007
By Ndaba Dlamini
CITY Parks has recognised its employees and other individuals and organisations that have contributed to the greening of the city through the annual City Parks Chairperson's Recognition Awards.
Held on Friday, 2 November at Thaba Yabatswana, in Kibler Park, the awards were given to City Parks staff and independent role players who have made a substantial contribution to building a greener, more sustainable and better environment.
Awards categories included environmental education, corporate social investment in greening, local government media and City Parks employees. Congratulating the winners, City Parks' chairperson, Griffith Zabala, said special attention had been given to greening the south of the city.
City Parks managing director Luther Williamson with some of the City Parks Environmental Awards winners
"The north of Johannesburg is recognised as an urban forest. In the past two years City Parks has managed to plant thousands of trees in the city, particularly in Soweto. It is important that we acknowledge all those people who have contributed positively to the greening of the city."
Luther Williamson, the managing director, encouraged all the independent role players to continue supporting the City's efforts to make Johannesburg a greener, more beautiful place.
Joseph Madikana and Shantell Mackay won outstanding individual performance: operations and outstanding individual performance: administration, respectively. The best-managed depot was the Kibler Park Depot.
Best small project was won by the Kremetart Park development and the 24-hour extreme park make-over scooped the best major project award.
Several awards were presented for community-based greening initiatives. Jennifer Oertel took the award in this category on behalf of the River Rangers Foundation for its contribution to patrolling and reporting by-law transgressors along river trails. Mandla Mentoor from the Soweto Mountain of Hope, a greening initiative in Soweto that instigates social and environmental community-based programmes; and Freda van Rooyen, from the Friends of the Ferndale Greenbelt, also walked away with awards.
Not to be outdone, Fikile Klaas from The Soweto Aquatics Club in Dobsonville and Halmar Taschner from Ludwig Roses took the honours in the environmental education category.
For facilitating funding for the 2010 Greening Soweto Legacy Project, Zakes Hlatshwayo and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) team walked away with the environmental institutions and environmental support award. Luke Radebe from the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and Jones Mnisi from Johannesburg Water scooped awards in the same category.
For their sponsorship of various competitions and environmental initiatives, Total SA, the Danish embassy, the Norwegian embassy, Nedbank and Cell C, were all recognised under the corporate social investment in greening category.
Environmental coverage in the media was also recognised. Pheladi Gwangwa and Alistair Teeling of Talk Radio 702, Isaac Mahlangu of the Sunday Times Metro newspaper, Ndaba Dlamini from Big Media, SABC's 50/50 nature programme, SABC's Morning Live current affairs programme, and The Citizen newspaper all got awards.
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