Fiona Macleod
When the powers that be decided earlier this year to honour Graa Machel’s late husband, Samora Machel, they took a large slab of marble up in a helicopter and hurled it on to their chosen site – or so it seems when you look at his monument at Mbuzini in Mozambique.
Suggestions were made that trees be planted at the site to soften the austere lines of the monument. But the powers decided this wasn’t a good idea.
In contrast, one of the legacies of Machel’s present husband, Nelson Mandela, will be a huge forest of indigenous trees – a living, growing, forever changing memorial.
When Mandela turned 80 in July last year, Nedcor Bank wanted to give him a gift but couldn’t decide what. “What do you give a man who has achieved just about everything in his life?” asks Ivan May, the bank’s assistant general manager.
The bank came up with a brainwave: why not give him a forest? It called in the “greening” NGO Trees for Africa, which has planted millions of trees around the country.
In consultation with Mandela, they decided to plant the forest on his 97,5ha farm in Qunu, near Umtata in the Transkei. They chose a barren hillside facing his home.
Almost 2 500 trees had been planted by this week, when Nedcor officially handed over the Madiba Forest. It is planted in a fenced-off area, and will be tended by Mandela’s farm manager, Orphalus Zidlele.
Mandela said he was delighted at the gift because “I grew up in rural areas and love nature.”
n Scotch Tagwireyi reports that Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Ronnie Kasrils has promised to commemorate heroes of the struggle by planting trees for them.
Kasrils says the theme for this year’s Arbor Week, from September 1 to 8, will be “trees in our lives”. He has challenged communities and organisations to come forward with the names of local heroes to be honoured.
“Trees can provide healing for the soul,” says Kasrils. “The report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has given us an understanding of the terrible traumas that our people have suffered. Trees will serve as living monuments in remembrance of the past and painful episodes.”