Sappi celebrates Arbor Day at the Hub

Pictured above is Dr Michael Birkett(left), Sappi Manager Chemical Sciences - Technology Centre and Tsietsi Maleho(right), TIH Corporate Affairs Manager who celebrated Arbor Day by planting an Acacia Sieberana or Paper Bark Acacia tree.

Sappi Ltd, the first anchor tenant at The Innovation Hub who took occupancy of its Technology Research Centre in January 2005, celebrated Arbor Day on 6 September this year with representatives from the Hub by planting an indigenous endemic Acacia Sieberana or Paper Bark Acacia tree at the precinct.

The following speech, read on behalf of Sappi's Environmental Research Manager, emphasises the importance of planting trees as part of Sappi's ongoing efforts to mitigate global warming and secure the future for the generations to come.

As you can imagine for Sappi, being a Forest Products company, Arbour Day is quite special to us. We are in the business of planting trees!

A day like this is a good opportunity to highlight an issue that is arguably the biggest and most imminent threat to mankind today - global warming. I am not going to expand on all the scientific evidence that is available that proves that global warming is occurring, or that the effects of it are already apparent. Nor will I discuss the various species that have already become extinct, and that many more will become extinct in our lifetime. But suffice it to say that it is incumbent on all of us to help solve this problem.

There are many potential ways that have been proposed to alleviate the problem, but essentially we - as humanity - have to radically alter the planet's carbon cycle. One way of helping to achieve this is to sequester carbon. Carbon generated by people (in the form of carbon dioxide, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels) can be stored in a number of ways. Much of it is stored in the soil. However, plants also store a significant portion of this carbon. By planting trees we can remove some of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the form of carbohydrates in trees - and we get life-giving oxygen in return.

The Montreal Protocol was a call to all nations to prevent global devastation due to the hole in the ozone layer caused by man-made chemicals. It worked. The Kyoto Protocol is a similar call to all nations to again prevent global devastation - this time due to global warming. We have no option but to make it work.

We hope that planting this indigenous endemic tree Acacia Sieberana or Paper Bark Acacia, which was donated by The Innovation Hub, will be symbolic of our combined efforts to secure the future for our children.

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