This year has been tough, no doubt about it. We ummed and arrrreeed about whether to organise a Run4Reforestation at all. But we thought: What the heck?! TREEZ needs to raise funds and people do love to run for a cause so let's see how it goes.
And it went brilliantly. People participated from all over the planet, from Ghana to Canade, Holland to Australia. And raised more than the R4R has ever raised before. An AMAZING performance by all involved :)
The funds were immediately put to use paying teams of patrols to keep watch over this side of the Plateau and they did a great job, We suffered only 2 fires.Some of the funds were also used to help the Forestry Department with their fuel needs so that they could access fires on the Plateau.
Sadly, there have been many fires on the Plateau itself. Many caused by cook fires getting out of control due to the high winds. The HUGE that reached all the news, was actually caused by an Escom cable that became loose in the high winds.The winds remained fierce throughout the day making it extremely dangerous and difficult to control the fire.
Perhaps some of you may be wondering why TREEZ has not been active in looking after the Plateau itself. We did say we wanted to put up watch towers...
And we did really want to, but when Covid hit, TREEZ had to batten down its financial hatches and concentrate on its core activities, namely: conservation and fire prevention through sponsorship of sports teams and support of local conservation groups on the south western slopes. With little money to look forward to in the near future and no idea how long the Covid situation was going to last, we decided to concentrate our efforts on what we our side of the Plateau and not start anything new as that could mean not being able to fund our core activities.
TREEZ has also adopted a new football team: Nankhunda FC, to provide healthy competition to the Happy Hammers and Berries Sisters. They have just received their first installment of their sponsorship and bought footballs and first aid kit. In exchange, they have been protecting their designated areas from fires and clearing the bush to allow the young trees to come through.
We are delighted to say that we have a little family of duiker close by as well as regular visits from hyena. This is all good news as it means that we have created a safe haven where they are comfortable to move around.