The City of Cape Town received first prize in the Metropolitan Municipality Category of the National Arbor City Awards, held in KwaZulu-Natal yesterday. The ceremony coincided with the launch of Arbor Month and this year’s theme ‘Forest Restoration: a path to recovery and well-being’.
‘The City of Cape Town has a proud history of increasing our green infrastructure and ensuring our natural landscape remains intact. This is a feather in the cap of our Recreation and Parks Department as they lead tree management within the City. The award is well deserved and highlights their hard work,’ said the Executive Mayor, Alderman Dan Plato.
Each category has one winner and the award includes a certificate and R300 000 prize money which is to be used for tree related or greening programmes.
‘We are part of several global environmental projects aimed at raising awareness about concerns related to the environment and the restoration of the planet’s ecosystem. We are constantly growing and expanding the city’s urban forest which will help Cape Town become more resilient and provide an increased awareness on the importance of planting trees,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Community Services and Health, Councillor Zahid Badroodien.
The National Dept of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment has been running this award programme together with the Institute of Environment and Recreation Management (IERM) and TOTAL South Africa, for the past 19 years. The City has won once before a few years ago.
The National Arbor City Awards are conducted in line with the DFFE greening strategy, which defines greening as ‘an integrated approach to the planting, care and management of all vegetation in urban and rural areas, to secure multiple benefits for communities and the citizens in general.
Greening is a task that requires multi-disciplinary approaches that include precise scientific knowledge and skills, socio – economic balancing and planning. In order to achieve the objective of greening, a combination of technical expertise, socio-economic balance and capacity building skills are required.
There is a particular focus on tree planting and management, due to its role in mitigating climate change. It acknowledges that tree-planting programmes relies on other supporting programmes such as environmental education and awareness to inform and educate society in general of the importance of the trees within the environment and their role in mitigating environmental threats.
The National Department drives this programme together with its Arbor Month Campaign and the National Two Million Trees Programme
The Awards are made in three categories namely
Metropolitan Municipalities – the City competed with entries from Cities of Joburg, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane and Ethekwini
Category B Municipalities
Rural Municipalities
‘The City’s Recreation and Parks Department has planted more than 7 000 trees the last three years and we continue to drive opportunities to further green the city. This Arbor Month we will have planted another 350 trees throughout the city. During one event next week, we will plant 75 trees along with the Indian Consul General to celebrate 75 years of Indian independence,’ said Councillor Badroodien.
A year ago the department completed the country’s first tree mapping project which provided extensive data on all trees in the city.
‘The project helps us to effectively manage and maintain the City’s trees and we hope to do a follow up in five to 10 years. A change in canopy cover can then be detected. The dataset can be used as a foundation to compare suburbs of similar size, effects of parks and recreational facilities on canopy percentage and to focus tree planting in less leafy areas, ensuring proper maintenance plans are in place to ensure tree survival,’ added Councillor Badroodien.
Source: City Of Cape Town