P. Nkosi writes:
The PAC very much appreciated the WITBANK NEWS report on Arbour Month. It is very good for people to know about Arbour Month and be reminded of this whenever necessary because the survival of the planet and survival of life depends on people’s awareness of the importance of trees and the action they take to protect trees. People should know that life on this planet is sustained by trees for their ability to produce oxygen as a waste product of their consumption of carbon-dioxide.
The end of the world? Do not blame God. End of the world would be upon us because some people are preparing to blow with nuclear bombs, or by destroying the trees in pursuit of profit. It may seem like nothing when you cut down just one tree, but there are companies in the Amazon, Brazil, DRC, Indonesia and here in South Africa who are cutting down so much trees clearing trees for mining and development without planting back. Hey, they are cutting down the lungs of the earth, the very life-form which makes the oxygen we breathe.
Secondly, the trees save us from global warming by capturing the carbon-dioxide that we as humans unleash into the atmosphere by digging out and burning the coal for the energy that we need. Arbour month is important; but we need an arbour year, an arbour decade, even a century, to reverse the damage that humans have done.
It was strange that the mayor of Emalahleni participated fully on Arbour Day, perhaps because the municipality is interested in the sponsorship money that could flow into Arbour Months so that they could divert it. If we are wrong, why then is the municipality pursuing a policy of cutting down trees in order to build RDP houses?
Why has the municipality invaded Leeupold Wetlands to build RDP houses, cutting down the trees where Abakhethiwe go for their annual initiation rites? Why are they preparing to unleash sewage discharge into the clean fountain water that is still remaining in Witbank? Unlike humans the waste product of trees, a life-form, as they eat carbon-dioxide is the dean fresh oxygen.
Why not build flats between town and the township like PAC suggested in the past? Flats can accommodate all the RDP people in a small area. Only those who have money to build for themselves can build in Klarinet and suburbs. Building RDP houses in the whole of Klarinet has caused the municipal invasion of wetland areas in Extension 5 and 6, with houses built on a swamp. On the day of the deluge those RDP houses would be swamped.
