Environmental best practice in not-for-profit organisations, sponsored by Nedbank
Commendation: Free Trees to Schools
Natalie Rowles’s project, called Free Trees to Schools, is run by one individual, but the Greening the Future judges were so inspired by it that they just had to give it an award.
Over the past five years Rowles has donated more than 3 000 yellowwood saplings to schools, municipalities, the public and indigenous forests. She collects fallen seeds from indigenous yellow-wood trees growing in her garden, then sows and transplants them into plant bags for donation.
“I am just an ordinary housewife who cares for her environment and tries to combat climate change with ‘green’ initiatives,” she wrote in her entry. The costs of the project come out of her own pocket, although she was pleased to receive a donation of R3 000 towards the transplanting of 1 000 saplings two years ago.
She gave at least 500 large saplings to a forest project started by the Cape Parrot Project in Hogsback in the Eastern Cape. The project, run by well-known ornithologist Dr Steve Boyes, is cultivating an indigenous forest in an attempt to provide a habitat for Africa’s most endangered parrots.
“Next year I will send another 600 smaller saplingsto Hogsback forest,” says Rowles. “The idea is to ensure a future food source for the Cape parrots, which are facing extinction with only about 800 flying wild in South Africa.”
Rowles, who is based near Pietermaritzburg, obtained sponsorship from DHL to courier her trees to Boyes in East London. The felling of indigenous trees has not only had an impact on the parrots and other birds, she says, but also causes land degradation, drought and rising temperatures.
“I believe the responsibility for ensuring that our environment is sustainable rests on the shoulders of each and every one of us. We need to help the government and local authorities make our environment more liveable for ourselves as well as for future generations,” Rowles says.
She ensures her own environmental footprint stays small by growing a 100% organic food garden of vegetables, herbs, berries and other fruit, which saves petrol and the need to go shopping.
“I use green grass, leaves, cardboard boxes, newspapers, vegetable waste products and kitchen bio-waste to go into my earthworm farm, producing pure top soil for organic food production and in the process helping to combat climate change. “This way of gardening uses the least water as the biowaste acts like a sponge and keeps the moisture in for longer, thus saving water.”
Rowles is dedicated to energy efficiency and using recycled water. She has built a simple solar geyser system to reduce electricity consumption at a local pre-primary school as well as two for her own use at home.
“I use swimming pool hoses to channel waterfrom my bath and washing machine outlets to my lawn, where it soaks on a slope to my fruit trees. “I also have a 5 000-litre fibre-glass water tank that I use to collect rainwater to water my food gardens with,” she says.
The judges said these seemingly small but practical steps have a big impact. “If everyone lived like Natalie Rowles, the world would be a very different place.”