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0 viewsGreenpop is a social enterprise based out of Cape Town, South Africa. With dedicated staff and volunteers, they strive to green under-greened areas and to make greening popular. This July they put on their ‘Trees for Zambia’ Project. As Zambia has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, Greenpop is working with a team on the ground in Zambia and worked with over 100 international volunteers to bring green back to the Livingstone area.
For 21 days in July 2012 volunteers, community members, school children, local businesses, tree growers, farmers and organisations came together to plant trees in and around Livingstone. The experience was moving for all involved and marked the start of an ongoing tree planting and climate change awareness campaign in Zambia. During the three week launch event, 4135 trees were planted.
• 21 schools received trees and a fun-filled day of tree planting, education and seed propagation with the pupils
• 775 trees (various fruits and Faidherbia albida) were planted with a women’s group at Songwe village in one day at a protected vegetable gardening site that was set up by Sun International. 110 extra trees were given to the women to plant at their homes.
• 875 indigenous trees were planted in a reforestation effort in a concession area of Dambwa forest in partnership with Lion Encounter and ALERT. 150 extra trees will be planted at that reforestation site in the next weeks.
• 280 lemon trees, 27 mango trees and 509 Faidherbia albida trees were planted with a group of 8 subsistence farmers at a community organisation called Sons of Thunder and the amazing benefits of the Faidherbia albida tree in conservation farming were demonstrated. The Conservation Farming Unit sent their representative, Gibson Simosokwe, down from Lusaka in the first week to train the farmers and the volunteers on this technique which enriches the soil and facilitates higher crop yields by planting trees within fields. In the 2nd week, UNDP representative, Excellent Hachileka, joined Greenpop along with Sadrick Sapwe from the Department of Forestry to continue the education and help set up a micro nursery at Sons of Thunder so that the farmers can start growing their own trees. 40 extra lemon trees were given to the farmers for planting in the coming weeks.
• 150 indigenous trees were planted on the final day of Trees for Zambia at the beautiful Victoria Falls in partnership with the National Heritage Conservation Commission.
• 21 trees were planted at Maramba River Lodge where volunteers were warmly hosted – 1 tree for every day of the project.
• 30 handmade solar cookers were made during the 3 weeks (with each school and farmer group) to demonstrate that almost everything needed to make a working solar cooker can be found and thus it is one of the cheapest and resource-efficient methods of cooking.
• His Royal Highness Senior Chief Mukuni accompanied by the District Commissioner of Kazungula and the Council Secretary joined Greenpop’s planting day in Songwe village, addressed the women’s group and volunteers and endorsed Greenpop’s tree planting and education project in Zambia. He welcomed the team to his village, acknowledged the need for trees as a result of cutting for charcoal and wooden curio making in the area, talked about the possible desertification in Zambia and even planted a tree himself.
• 100 Zambian volunteers signed up to help plant trees and be tree ambassadors in Livingstone over the 3-week event and beyond. During Greenpop’s volunteer sign up meeting, a vibrant discussion broke out and after about 4 hours of sharing opinions, the volunteers decided that this type of sharing on the future of the environment around Livingstone was very valuable. A board was selected right then and there and a new green forum for Livingstone was set up. During the 3 weeks, the board had 3 meetings to formalise themselves and the proposed name is Green Action Zambia. This new forum has a shared vision with Greenpop to continue education, monitor trees, plant more trees, set up workshops and more.
• 3000 trees were bought from Zambezi Nkuku, Greenpop’s ground partner in Livingstone. The other trees were purchased from and donated by local growers and gifted to the project by Wilderness Safaris and the Zambian Child Foundation.
• 3 Speaker Evenings were held each Wednesday during the project to educate and inspire. Wanjira Mathai, daughter of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, sent a direct video message to the Greenpop volunteers. Dr Pachauri, chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also sent his message to Greenpop via video and acknowledged the value of tree planting. David Youldon, CEO of African Lion & Environmental Research Trust spoke about the ALERT project and the value of trees for lions in Africa. Ella Bella, UN Youth Ambassador for the Environmental Programme, Educational Officer for the Miss Earth SA Programme and Founder of Generation Earth spoke about her projects including the Miss Earth leadership programme that she is a large part of (the Miss Earth ladies were sponsored by Reliance Compost to join the Trees for Zambia project for a week and got really stuck in). Tony Budden of Hemporium SA and Hemp Now spoke to volunteers about the incredible values of growing industrial hemp. Ruth Henson an expert on holistic farming in Zambia enlightened us all about land management and farming. Charles Batte, winner of the global Your Big Year competition run by Smaller Earth spoke about social entrepreneurship and its important role in Africa.
• Meg Coates Palgrave, author of Trees of Southern Africa joined the Trees for Zambia project for a week, gave tree courses to volunteers and spoke about the amazing trees around Livingstone.
• 3 celebrations were held – at the end of each of the planting weeks, volunteers and community members forgot their blistered hands and partied on Friday evenings to the tunes of the Drumming Co, TouchWood, The ChikenBus Band and Jeremy Loops and Co.
• Makhulu Productions filmed a documentary on the project and the challenges of deforestation in Zambia. Click here to watch!
• Powerful partnerships have been set up and Greenpop is grateful to everyone who was involved and will be involved going forward.
• Greenpop’s Trees for Zambia was the launch event for an ongoing tree planting and climate change awareness campaign in Zambia.
(Photo credit: Sydelle Willow Smith and Makhulu- Rowan Pybus)