The eThekwini municipality’s environmental management department, in partnership with the Wildlands Conservation Trust, Durban Solid Waste (DSW) and local communities, has launched a pilot project to plant 62 500 indigenous trees as part of its R21,5-million Greening Durban 2010 programme.
The project is being funded jointly by the eThekwini municipality and the Danish government.
The trees will be planted on 125 ha of the buffer zone around the new Buffelsdraai landfill site, near Verulam, on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast. The land, which is owned by the eThekwini municipality, was previously a sugar cane farm.
Dr Debra Roberts, head of the eThekwini municipality’s environmental management department and the Greening Durban 2010 programme, said the trees planted by the project would capture and store many thousands of tons of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, helping to offset some of the 150 000 t
of carbon emissions expected to be generated through hosting the 2010 soccer World Cup in Durban.
The eThekwini municipality has committed itself to hosting a climate-neutral 2010 soccer World Cup.
“To achieve this, all carbon emissions generated by the construction of the Moses Mabhida stadium, and the hosting of the actual event, will be minimised, and those that cannot be
avoided will be offset through reforestation projects and carbon emission reductions at municipal service facilities,” Roberts said.
Julie-May Ellingson, head of the municipality’s strategic projects unit and Durban’s 2010 programme, said that, in a partnership with local communities, the municipality would assist community ‘treepreneurs’ to collect and plant tree seeds and cultivate the saplings, which they could then sell back to the project through a barter system of goods, such as food and clothing.
The municipality will also pay a ‘green team’ from the local community to plant and maintain the saplings.
DSW environmental asset manager Richard Winn said that, as part of eThekwini’s climate protection programme, methane from the Mariannhill landfill site, which has also been awarded conservancy status, was already being converted into electricity and fed into the
national grid. A similar project is running at the Bisasar landfill site, at Springfield.
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