The members of Union High School’s Eco Club recently made great strides in neutralizing their carbon footprint, by assisting SANParks in establishing a Spekboom nursery.
This incredible plant with its bright green, circular leaves is a miracle worker when it comes to fighting air pollution. It has the ability to ‘sequester’ or capture four to ten tons of carbon per hectare!
Essentially, it acts as a carbon sponge, absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and turning it into plant matter. Excess carbon in the atmosphere is responsible for global warming, so the more carbon we can remove from the air and return to the ground, the better. Spekboom is also known as Pork Bush or Elephant’s Food.
In an initiative to propagate new Spekboom plants, the Eco Club learners, accompanied by SANParks personnel, visited Mountain Drive, where they gathered Spekboom cuttings and then later transferred them to seedling trays in the Park’s nursery.
SANParks will sell these new Spekboom plants to generate an income for their nursery and simultaneously reduce CO2 in the atmosphere.
