By Staff Reporter
It has been a culture of planting of trees and encouraging communities as well as schools in doing so yearly by the Department of Agriculture rural development and land affair. Acting MEC within the department Busi Shiba has called on communities in Mpumalanga to plant as many trees as possible. Speaking at a Provincial Arbor Day commemoration at Rynoridge in eMalahleni, a day that aims at creating awareness and encouraging communities to plant trees, and look after their environment. Shiba has encouraged communities to plant as many trees as they can.
“As part of the Government Greening Programme, the President has given a directive to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment for the planting of at least two million trees annually for the next five years (target 10 million) in an effort to green our cities, towns, townships and reclaim the degraded areas.
As a partner to the National Programme, will plant 50 000 trees in 2021 across the Province, as part of the greening of our townships, reducing carbon emissions while providing socio-economic benefits under the 2021 theme:
“Give back to Nature, Plant a Tree”, she said.
Shiba has called on both young and old to introduce change, to coexist and give back to nature.
In setting up an example of all that was said MEC Shiba and HOD Chunda, including eMalahleni Local Municipality representatives and other stakeholders in the environment sector planted trees to households around the area. Shiba also went on to inspect the Air Quality Monitoring Station at the Greendale High which has been there for years.
