This past weekend, almost 150 people joined Greenpop in Platbos Forest, just outside of Gansbaai, for the Reforest Fest: a weekend of forest activities, music and dancing, and – most importantly – planting trees.
The forest, curated largely by Francois and Melissa Kriger of the Platbos Forest Conservancy, is one of the southernmost forests in the world and one of the oldest forests in Southern Africa, containing many trees that are over 1000 years old. However, invasive alien vegetation has encroached on many parts of the forest, while in other areas the forest is slowly fragmenting and shrinking in size. To combat this, Greenpop staff and partners cleared a great deal of the alien vegetation before the festival. Mimicking the natural growth patterns of the forest, volunteers planted 2000 seedlings of indigenous trees in groups of six until hundreds of meters of previously bare earth were covered in freshly planted trees.
While the tree planting was both the main goal of the Reforest Fest and the core event of the weekend, it was by no means the only activity. As last weekend was both the Family Fest (as opposed to this weekend’s Friends Fest) and Mothers’ Day, Greenpop organized a series of activities for both children and parents. All members of the family were welcome to visit stations ranging from sunrise yoga and forest meditation to arts and crafts and musical instruments. Additionally, on the Saturday night the satisfied planters were joined by DJ Pure Incense, Croc E Moses, TouchWood, and Trenton & Free Radicals for an incredible night of slam poetry, music, and dancing under the forest canopy.
This weekend, Greenpop will return to host the Friends Fest, in which 300 more volunteers will plant a further 2000-plus trees in order to continue reforestation efforts in the area. Have a look at their website to find out more about the weekend.