Greenpop, Cape Town’s coolest tree planting and environment organisation, is doing it again. They’re taking 5000 trees to Zambia to plant at schools, subsistence farms and in reforestation sites and you can help to make it happen. Trees for Zambia is set to take place between 7 and 28 July but the awareness campaign to get people active about making sustainable changes lasts much longer than that.
You might have noticed one of our journo’s reporting about, and from, the 3-week event in 2012, when the first Trees for Zambia took place. Read all her posts here.
Read: The coolest reforestation project so far: Trees for Zambia
They had an incredible time, planting the trees, spending time with the kids in the communities and teaching them to love trees and their natural environment. They taught and got taught about sustainable farming methods. They painted murals and played football. They showed and watched documentaries and had fun enjoying the legendary array of activities around Livingstone.
Read: Ten ways tree planting makes you happy
Zambia has approximately 50 million hectares of forest, with an estimated deforestation rate of 250,000 to 300,000 hectares per year. The main reasons for this incredible deforestation rate are bad land management, slash and burn farming methods, unsustainable logging and tree cutting for charcoal. The deforestation results in a change in the local ecosystem, a loss of biodiversity and increased incidence of both drought and flooding. It also means a decline in food security due to a reduction of agricultural yields and the loss of valuable forest resources. Additionally, women have to walk further to find wood, resulting in less productivity and children being left alone at home.
How you can help
Become a volunteer
Applications for volunteer positions of one, two or the full three weeks are now open. The cost includes three meals a day, accommodation and an experience you won’t soon forget. Download the pdf with all the volunteering information, daily activities and testimonies.
Donate trees
Email [email protected] for a full sponsorship proposal, or simply go to the Trees for Zambia page and click on Gift Trees at the bottom. Alternatively, go directly to their GivenGain page.
Raise your own funds
If the volunteering price seems too steep for your liking, you can become an activist and raise funds on behalf of Greenpop and then get your own project fees reduced. Go to the Trees for Zambia page for all the information.
Trees for Zambia is not just a project to replace 5000 of the trees that have been cut down, it’s much bigger than that. The plan is to educate the local people on how to farm and support themselves in a more sustainable way. Greenpop wants to inspire a culture of tree planting and looking after the environment, caring for it instead of destroying it. And they need all the help that they can get. So if you’re still looking for a way to do good this year, this is your chance – the chance to physically get involved with a great cause or the chance to click a few buttons and contribute to a decent, hands-on project.
Greenpop
021-461-9265
[email protected]
www.greenpop.org
Facebook page
Twitter @GreenpopSA
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