WSSD Report FINAL! - OGP

CONTRIBUTING TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Engagement and community outreach
In the cultural support area, BP has been a major
contributor to the American University of Cairo’s
ongoing Theban mapping project to chart the topography
and the contents of the whole area of the Royal
Theban necropolis, the Valleys of the Kings and
Queens, and the Tombs of the Nobles.
Turning alien vegetation into jobs in South Africa
Alien vegetation can
become a source of
sustainable paper.
Job creation is a prime objective in South Africa.
With a formal unemployment rate of 35 per cent
and the economy facing heightened competition
after years of Apartheid-induced isolation, many previously
employed people are now out of work.
In the Southern Cape, near the town of George,
thousands of forestry workers have been made
redundant in recent years. Government schemes to
employ them in eradicating alien vegetation choking
riverbeds and lowering the water table, have ameliorated
the social consequences. But the money has run
out and the Government can no longer afford the
wages for this extremely labour intensive work.
The problem of invasive alien vegetation remains
and the notorious Port Jackson wattle is a prime
example. A mature specimen drinks 100 litres of water
a day. Clearing up the proliferation of Port Jackson
wattles, which have dried up rivers in an area already
short of water, could take 20 years. The challenge is to
create a sustainable economic operation to carry out
the clearance.
The South Cape Business Centre came up with a
multi-faceted approach that BP Southern Africa was
happy to support financially. The scheme has created
120 sustainable jobs so far, and has encouraged and
educated entrepreneurial talent in the community. It
also has the potential to reverse the serious ecological
damage wrought by alien vegetation.
Starting in April 1999, 12 teams each of
ten men and women, assembled voluntarily.
Some teams were collected
together by a self-appointed leader while
others elected their own team leader.
Collectively, and with the assistance of
a local micro-entrepreneur, each team
contracted with local farmers to cut down
and remove invasive Port Jackson trees.
First, the trees are cut down with a chainsaw,
which each team purchases with a low interest loan
from the Business Centre.
Next comes the bark stripping process. After the
bark has been fed into a chipper to make mulch to be
sold through garden centres, the rest is made into
compost. Salvaged wood is used for making toys and
rustic garden furniture.
Stripped of their bark, the logs (up to 2.5 metres in
length and 50 centimetres in diameter) are loaded
onto wagons and taken by rail to paper mills in South
Africa’s Natal province that contract to pay each team
so much per tonne.
Meanwhile, on site, portable steel ovens convert
smaller branches to charcoal, which is then bagged
and sold to local retailers for barbecue fuel.
Charcoal and mulch are packed in paper bags
screen-printed at a BP-financed refurbished building
in the nearby village of Pacaltsdorp. The Business
Centre provides help with bookkeeping skills, marketing
techniques, tax problems and other skills required
to run a small business.
The scheme is looking good. Contracts have been
signed a year ahead. More farmers are queuing up for
help in ridding their lands of alien plants and government-owned
land has been made available by the
Work for Water programme, a project run by the
Department of Water Affairs.
In five years time the rivers might start running all
year again—something they haven’t done for more
than a century.
Charcoal producers
make use of the
wattles’ small
branches.
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