There is serendipity in the fact that Arbor Week and Heritage Day are both celebrated in the month of September, which also heralds the beginning of Spring in South Africa.
At Sappi Southern Africa, where the company has 166 Important Conservation Areas (ICAs) listed on its forestry plantations in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal, among them, six declared nature reserves covering an area of 6,486 hectares; there is no doubt that Sappi Southern Africa takes the conservation of biodiversity on its property seriously. This commitment is reinforced by its Threatened and Endangered Species Stewardship Programme, with its flagship Warburgia salutaris project.
In a continuation of its ongoing work on this project and in a lead-up to Arbor Week, Sappi, in conjunction with the SANPARKS Skukuza Nursery, has made available 2,000 Warburgia salutaris – or Pepperbark tree – saplings to the Endangered Wildlife Trust for their Warburgia salutaris project in the Soutpansberg Protected Area in Limpopo Province. The saplings were originally propagated through the cooperation between Sappi, ARC Nelspruit and SANBI Nelspruit and held at the Skukuza Indigenous Nursery awaiting distribution to qualifying Warburgia projects.
About the Endangered Pepper Bark tree
Warburgia salutaris, commonly known as the pepper-bark tree or ‘isibhaha’ in isiZulu, has long been one of the most highly prized tree species in the Southern African traditional healthcare sector. However, with commercial gatherers increasingly crossing into protected areas such as the Kruger National Park (KNP), the trees have become increasingly scarce and are now considered critically endangered – unsustainable bark harvesting means that trees die a few months after harvesting. The tree is formally protected under SA legislation in the revised National Forests Act (2012) and the National Environmental Management Biodiversity Act (2004).
An initiative was launched in 2011 to propagate the trees and distribute them to communities living around the Kruger National Park (KNP) in an attempt to take the pressure off the few remaining wild trees still growing in the park. In 2014, Sappi joined the project participants – SANParks, the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) – with an initial donation.
(Read the full article by Zelda Schwalbach here)