Warburgia Salutaris 2

Sappi's support to conserve the gravely endangered Warburgia Salutaris (Pepper Bark) trees in the Kruger National Park.

During 2013, Sappi Southern Africa called for its customers to nominate tree projects as part of the Typek™ green promotion campaign run in conjunction with Makro stores. The Kruger National Park Honorary Rangers Warburgia salutaris project was selected as the beneficiary, receiving R100,000 in support of the project.

The Warburgia salutaris is of medicinal and mythological value to indigenous African people as well as western homeopathy. It is one of the protected trees of South Africa and a red data species that is classified as endangered. The tree is heavily poached for the commercial 'muti' market and in some areas is under armed guard.

The Warburgia salutaris project funding will support workshops with communities to identify tree custodians; increasing the number of bagged nursery grown trees in the KNP Nursery for distribution to identified community traditional healers; training the tree guards in seed collection and propagation; providing bicycles and uniforms for the tree guards and sourcing additional supplier of tree seedlings.

The project allowed customers of Sappi Typek™ and Makro to nominate any community greening or tree planting projects by purchasing a box of Typek™ paper during January and February 2013.

This content is a copy of a Project Aardwolf conservation and environment programme in their series "The thing about....." aired on the DSTV Kyknet Channel in South Africa.