Nellmapius received 2 180 trees from Audi SA in September as part of Arbor Month celebrations. Arbor Month aims to motivate individuals, schools, businesses and communities to plant, sponsor and look after our diverse natural tree heritage. These 2 180 trees form part of over 8 000 trees that Audi South Africa committed to planting around South Africa, through the FTFAs Trees for Homes programme this year.
Ryan Searle, Head: of Audi South Africa, says that “This year sees Audi SA enter the third of its four year greening project and we are doing it in true Vorsprung style by planting 8 735 trees in the Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal“.
Audi SA and Food & Trees for Africa identified communities close to their Terminal Concept Dealerships to be the recipients of these trees. These included Hatfield, Northcliff, Somerset West and Pinetown.
The result, 218 hectares of urban forest that is made up of fruit and indigenous trees. In addition, these tree have been registered by Food & Trees for Africa for the United Nations Billion Tree initiative.
The first 680 trees were distributed on the 6 September at the Show Houses, Koporo Street, Ext. 6 in Nellmapius. Nellmapius has successfully hosted a number of greening initiatives and other projects before. This community contains 6 000 low cost houses with a population estimated at around 50 000. The majority of residents are unemployed youth. The main challenges facing this disadvantaged community are crime, an escalating unemployment rate due to retrenchment and an uneducated group of youths who cannot afford a tertiary education.
“The lack of environmental awareness and knowledge of how to care for our local surroundings has left us degraded land. We believe that this project will help us reclaim the land through the planting of indigenous trees to make the area green and encourage pride in our settlement,” said Joel Masilela, Councillor.
Further tree distributions of another 1 500 trees took place in Nellmapius during Arbor Month.
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