BuaNews (Tshwane)
Gabi Khumalo
22 April 2008
Johannesburg — In observing the 38th Earth Day aimed at encouraging people to take care of our planet, the City of Johannesburg will on Tuesday unveil the newly developed community park in Bramfischerville, Soweto.
World Earth Day is an event where the world's citizens commit to building a safer, healthier, cleaner and sustainable world.
The community park is a partnership between the Johannesburg City Parks with the Member of the Mayoral Committee for Development Planning and Urban Management in the City of Johannesburg.
The celebration will also include the planting of 15 000 trees in Meadowlands.
During the event, City Parks will on behalf of the Executive Mayor of Johannesburg, Amos Masondo be issuing a Call to Action campaign to communities and corporate South Africa to sponsor the planting of 200 000 trees in the city.
Through the campaign, residents are urged to plant trees in their respective suburbs and businesses are invited to fund the planting of street trees by emailing trees@jhbcityparks.com.
Councillor Gladys Fihla urged residents to reduce their carbon footprint.
"Never in our history has the importance of nurturing our environment been so critical.
"Climate change, food and oil shortages, HIV and ongoing strife in Africa, is impacting negatively on the environment," said Ms Fihla.
She also stressed a need to adopt an attitude of save, reuse, reduce and recycle to leave a healthy legacy for the benefit of future generations.
Meanwhile, the South African National Parks (SANParks) has coordinated activities across all of its parks for Earth Day 2008, to educate staff members, guests and the general public about the importance of sustained conservation efforts that each individual can make.
SANParks' theme for this event is "Defend our Earth, care for its Life and People".
Acknowledging the current power crisis faced by South Africans, there will be a voluntary power shut down of all but essential services, between 9am and 11am across all our parks, including SANParks Head Office in Groenkloof, Pretoria, which will be the Gauteng venue for Earth Day 2008 activities.
SANParks spokesperson, Wanda Mkutshulwa said the impact of this will be approximately a 16.6kW saving of energy by Head Office alone and each of the individual parks will show similar savings on energy consumption.
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