Conservancies support World Wetlands Day
Upper Highway conservancies are working on developing wetlands in some areas to clean contaminated stormwater.
THE Upper Highway conservancies promoted International World Wetlands Day by running a series of events to highlight wetlands in Hillcrest.
World Wetlands Day, celebrated on February 2, is a global event dedicated to recognising the significance of wetlands, which encompass a wide range of habitats, including marshes, swamps, bogs and mangroves.
The conservancies are working on developing wetlands in some areas to ‘clean/polish’ contaminated stormwater.
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The ‘anchor event’ was a stand and display at Hillcrest Corner Shopping Centre which ran on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday, Highway’s very own ‘frog lady’, Dr Jeanne Tarrant, led a walk for interested people at a wetland inside Springside Nature Reserve.
On Saturday, everyone was invited to take a walk at the Tree Park near the old Hillcrest Railway Station. On the day, a group of children from Embo joined in the walk and immersed themselves in the educational activities.
The event was organised by a team of volunteers from the Hillcrest Conservancy.
“Activities were aimed at explaining how wetlands work, how to build a wetland, which plants are good ‘polishers’ of contaminated water and why litter has no place on the Earth,” said Hillcrest Conservancy’s Luci Coelho.
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Tree Park is a stretch of land alongside Inanda Road which receives much contaminated stormwater from roads and other hard surfaces. This will take a long time to fully establish, but good progress is being made.
She reminded the public that children for the Junior Competition and adults for the Senior Competition can still participate in the Wetlands and Human Well-being competition – entries close on Sunday, February 11.
Coelho conveyed a big thank you to Hillcrest Corner’s Bev Wilson, Mfundo Ncayiyana and Beth Roux for their amazing support and for mobilising competition prizes from Essence, Wimpy, Mama Luciana, Woolworths, Checkers and Crazy Store.
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