The City’s Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo was recently awarded first prize in the prestigious National Arbour City Awards.
The honorees were celebrated during the Greening For Champion gala dinner hosted by the Green Development Foundation (GDF) at the Leonardo in Sandton on September 27. The event also commemorated the launch of the foundation’s One Million Trees programme.
According to GDF CEO Rebecca Ngaka, the programme is aimed at planting one million trees, both indigenous and fruit, across Gauteng by 2024 to reduce the province’s carbon footprint.
“Trees provide benefits to promote health, and social wellbeing and even help your home. Trees serve many purposes in your local community and throughout the entire world.”
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Gauteng MEC for Economic Development Parks Tau, added that the programme reaffirms the country’s commitment to implement pledges to international forums to address harmful climate change effects.
“An important international pledge we made in 2015 was signed into the Paris Agreement whose objective is to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2°C while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5%.
Tau pledged that the department will plant more than 45 000 trees for the One Million Trees program in partnership with the government and the private sector.
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As part of the JCPZ’s award, the entity was given a cheque for R400 000 which will go towards Johannesburg’s greening program.
Learn more about the One Million Trees Programme at www.gdfsa.org
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