A local resident from Duxberry in Riverclub has been tirelessly cleaning a stretch of a greenbelt that borders his property.
Martin Viljoen, an avid gardener with a love for the outdoors and greenery, bought his property around 12 years ago when built his house.
He said that no one used the green space there. “I started cleaning the area outside my house, took my high wall down and put in a clear fence.”
Viljoen said that the area was very overgrown and had a lot of invasive species.
“We started clearing out the alien vegetation and we have cleared tons and tons of plants.”
Around six months ago another resident, Clive Tressider and his team started cutting out large batches of invasive species. To offset the alien species he has removed, Viljoen started planting indigenous trees in the area.
Viljoen said he bought about a 100 trees. “I also received some donations from Grow Wild in Kyalami who donated about 400 trees and also around 40 trees from Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo.”
To date, he has planted around 600 indigenous trees in the area within the last six months. “We are also going to get around 300 more trees to plant.
“Another thing we did was monitoring sewerage breaks and cleaned the river bank areas. The Outspan Spruit is natural spring water and is not part of the Jukskei River.”
Viljoen said since they have been cleaning the area, they have wild African ducks, guinea fowls and owls that have started breeding there again.
Walking through the area, it is clear that a lot of time has gone into creating a useable space for the community.
Viljoen spends around two hours a day cleaning the area and hopes to create an indigenous forest. He is delighted that the community has started using the park area and has also added identifying tags to some of the indigenous trees he has planted to interest the people that walk in the park.
He concluded that he would like schools and the community to get involved with the clean-up projects.
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