10-million trees? A letter to the Minister
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Alanna Rebelo
To: Minister Ms Barbara Creecy and Ms Nosipho Ndzimbomvu (Directorate: Small Scale Forestry, Forestry Management Branch)
Complaint about the national Ten Million Trees Programme
As a researcher with experience in alien tree mapping (and modelling their impacts in terms of water-use), I wish to formally complain about the national Ten Million Trees Programme. This programme appears to be both poorly thought out and also very poorly marketed. It encourages citizens to plant trees, offers the reward of a certificate from DFFE and even suggests that this is supported by the Minister in charge of our natural environment!
Absolutely no information is given on what trees should be planted where and to what purpose.
For example, the department does not specify that these should be trees indigenous to the area being planted, that citizens should never plant trees in natural environments unless they form part of a bona fide restoration programme, that it is illegal in terms of South African law to plant certain trees in certain places, and it gives no warning of the considerable negative impacts of trees.
This surely opens DFFE to legal action?
The Programme’s flyer is the epitome of greenwashing and, worse, it buys into a colonial and anti-South African mindset. A “greener South Africa”? South Africa isn’t green (except perhaps in the rainy season); South Africa is more often yellow, khakhi and brown and we should be proud of it! We should be celebrating our own ecosystems and not trying to apply a European mindset to our South African context. We need to decolonise this flyer and the DFEE’s programme. We do have forests, but they make up a tiny proportion of South Africa (indigenous forest covers less than 0.56% of the country’s area) and, given that our forests are well conserved, planting trees is really the last thing we need to do for our people, for nature, or for combatting climate change.
In fact, studies show that invasive alien trees (some non-invasive ones too and even some indigenous ones – think bush encroachment) have very serious negative impacts, including, but not limited to:
- Depleting water resources
- Increasing drought risk
- Amplifying the impacts of anthropogenic climate change
- Reducing agricultural productivity
- Increasing erosion and sedimentation of dams
- Causing damage to infrastructure during flood events
- Increasing fire hazard
- Negatively impacting biodiversity
- Impacts in suburbs: clogging drains, raising pavements, cracking walls, blocking access
- Health impacts: produce allergenic pollen
- Safety hazards: dropped tree limbs
These impacts translate into economic damages to the tune of billions of Rands each year.
We also now know, from a paper published by South African scientists in a Nature journal, that these invasive alien trees worsen the impact of anthropogenic climate change in South Africa. The paper considered the south Western Cape drought (2015-2017) – when Cape Town’s taps almost ran dry – and demonstrates that invasive alien trees in our mountain catchments significantly amplify the drought severity.
This study proves that clearing invasive alien trees from our mountain catchments is an important intervention that should be part of our climate-change adaptation strategy.
So this oversimplified message that “planting trees will help fight climate change” is utter rubbish and should not be promoted by DFFE.
South Africa has invested billions of Rands in alien-tree clearing in South Africa, a large part of the problem originating with a colonial government which, in the same way as DFFE, irresponsibly and thoughtlessly encouraged and promoted tree planting across South Africa.
On the one hand, how can the current government invest so much money on alien tree clearing while, on the other, it promotes careless tree planting?
This type of institutional fragmentation is extremely problematic; and symptomatic of the many serious governance challenges facing our country.
Countless South African scientists work long hours to publish popular articles and policy papers – on top of their responsibility to publish scientific papers. They do this to get the message about tree impacts out to decision makers and members of the public.
Please visit this small community-based organisation that has been trying to collate these and other articles; this very good piece, and this brilliant video that aims to communicate that trees are not the only valuable plants – and forests not the only valuable ecosystems.
It is unacceptable that a South African government department ignores decades of research in South Africa (and the additional effort to reach the public and decision makers) to launch such an irresponsible programme.
Your programme has already sparked outcry from two of South Africa’s top scientists, Professors William Bond and Tony Rebelo, in the form of letters written to the public and published in a local newspaper (see Shady Proposition elicits illuminating responses).
I ask, firmly, that this programme be shut down immediately or, alternatively, that scientific advice is urgently sought on how to reword this programme’s marketing material, ensuring that the subtleties and critical details are well and responsibly communicated.
Better still, I challenge DFFE to encourage South African citizens to get involved in the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration by joining their excellent programmes and initiatives.
There are so many things we can and should be doing.
Indiscriminate tree planting is not one of them. We should be placing emphasis on restoring ecosystems if we really care about environmental and social justice in South Africa. Any funding directed towards the current misdirected and contradictory programme would therefore be better spent fighting the scourge of invasive alien trees that threaten both people and nature in our beautiful country.
Yours sincerely
Dr Alanna Rebelo
Postdoctoral Researcher: Stellenbosch University
Further Reading: Pyšek P et al 2020 – Scientists warning on invasive alien species
Update
On 15 February 2022, Alanna Rebelo met with two officials from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) to discuss her concerns about its Ten Million Tree Programme.
The DFFE acknowledged that it had not intended that its programme be interpreted in any way other than, to quote Professor William Bond, “the right tree in the right place for the right reasons”. Its vision is for the planting of indigenous trees in urban settings and, in particular, in new RDP housing developments – which are characteristically bare.
The Department’s officials acknowledged that there were issues with the advertisement and said that they would be editing it to avoid future confusion. They proposed the following solutions:
- revisit the advert and plug any identified holes to limit the chance of misinterpretation
- where possible, indicate which trees would be feasible to plant in which areas
- highlight the trade-offs associated with tree planting, e.g. water
FoTP welcomes the DFFE’s spirit of constructive engagement with scientists and academia and looks forward to collaborating further with its officials.
This Post Has One Comment
An excellent article, Alanna – and thank you for taking the trouble to engage with DEFF so constructively and with good results. I hope that the Department has retracted their support of the Ten Million Trees Programme?