I went back to KwaJobe with the Wildlands Conservation Trust this month, this was the first community to take up the Indigenous Trees for Life Project in 2004. KwaJobe is right near Mkhuze Game Reserve in the north of KwaZulu Natal, and hundreds of people in this community now grow indigenous trees from seed and trade them back to Wildlands for food, bicycles, agricultural goods and now people are growing enough trees to purchase Jojo tanks for rain water collection. In a community where water is collected from Muzi Pan, for some a good many kilometres walk, these Jojo tanks are a huge benefit and enable them to have clean drinking water.
The trees grown by the community members, once collected, are then planted back into this same community and the landowners who plant the trees are paid R2 for each planting, and a further R 1 per quarter that they keep that tree alive. I will write more about this side of the project, known as Greening your Future, and post more images, another time.
Maryann Shaw (Maryann Rivers-Moore)
