Durban plans to clean up after COP17/CMP7

2011/04/11

With over 25,000 delegates expected to arrive in Durban for the COP17/CMP7 Convention this month, the local municipality has plans to reduce the expected carbon footprint.

eThekwini's deputy head of environmental planning and climate protection, Debra Roberts, said that a special initiative nicknamed ‘Community Ecosystem Based Adaptation’ would help clean up the city after the event.

"The Durban Ceba Initiative is one of the most exciting elements of the city's broader COP17 greening programme. It has been adopted as the official voluntary offset mechanism for COP17. Delegates, corporates and residents of Durban will be able to contribute towards the project by buying 'Ceba credits' to play their part in helping offset the environmental impact associated with hosting COP17," Roberts said.

She went on to explain: "Each Ceba credit will cost about $10 (R80) and the money raised will be used for the official Ceba greening site along the Umbilo River catchment area. Unemployed people from the neighbouring communities
will then be employed as 'green collar' workers to first remove alien
plants and trees.

"Part of the money will be used to plant indigenous trees along the Umbilo River, with the pilot reforestation site located at Paradise Valley, near Pinetown. The project is a community-centred climate adaptation model based on  generating African solutions to climate change.

"We want this project to not only benefit the ecological sustainability of the river, but the social sustainability of poor communities along it.

Her hopes were that the project would offset around 16,000 tons of carbon more than covering the impact to the environment the conference would cause.

Visit www.durbanceba.org after the 10th for more information on the innitiative.