All in a day's work

The Hoek River runs through the Slanghoek Valley. In the distance, Garth Mortimer of Cape Nature discusses new sites with Dept of Agriculture’s Rudolph Röscher and Sakkie du Toit, owner of the Slanghoek Mountain Resort near Rawsonville.

Setting out early on Friday 15 October, the bigFIG team travelled together in a bus to Slanghoek Mountain Resort to spend a day on the farm planting trees, enjoying the area and getting to know how it will benefit from the new vegetation.

The farm, which is part of CapeNature's Stewardship Programme, has suffered from severe erosion in recent years and the tree planting is part of an effort to restore the riverbanks and support local biodiversity.

As they take in CO2 to grow, the trees will also help bigFIG realise its goal of being carbon neutral by offsetting the team's transport emissions generated by travelling to and from work and meetings.

'Tree planting is one part of our broader carbon footprint strategy. We do everything possible to reduce our carbon emissions to a minimum, and where this isn't possible we offset our carbon footprint by planting trees,' said Simon Espley, CEO at bigFIG.

All the trees planted by bigFIG are indigenous to the area and will help to rehabilitate and reinforce the river's banks to prevent further erosion in the future and return the area to a more natural state.

BigFIG planted 60 trees that will more than offset the team's transport emissions for the past three months. This is the first of many tree-planting days that bigFIG will take part in as part of its goal to become carbon-neutral.

Espley says, 'We look forward to an ongoing involvement with Slanghoek Mountain Resort and returning year after year to track our trees and plant more. It's great for our staff, great for Slanghoek and great for the planet. This is a very affordable and efficient way to make a real difference. We encourage other businesses to join us at Slanghoek or to find similar projects in their area. We also encourage landowners to contact Slanghoek to learn about the process and to adopt similar strategies.'

The trees planted were Rooiels (butterspoon tree) (2), Assegaai tree (4), Cape Ash (2) , Cape Holly (1), Wild Peach (10), Wild Olive (10), Breede River Yellowwood (10), Cape Beech (10), White Stinkwood (11).

For further information about bigFIG go to www.bigfig.com. We create digital magazines for ourselves and for our corporate clients.

To find out about supporting Slanghoek Mountain Resort's tree-planting initiative, visit www.slanghoekresort.co.za or contact +27 (0)23 344 3138. Also read this for more information on the area's biodiversity initiatives

About CapeNature

For more on the CapeNature and its Stewardship programme go to www.capenature.co.za.

bigFig Digital Media CEO, Simon Espley gets to grips with a Rooiels (butterspoon tree).

A hardy White Stinkwood finds a new home.

Graphic designer Cindy Armstrong prepares one of several holes for her allocation of indigenous trees.

The verdant Slanghoek Valley receives some of the highest winter rainfall in the Western Cape. However, agriculture has altered the water course, creating seasonal flooding and denuding the river banks of indigenous vegetation.