Inqo Investments has completed the planting phase of its ambitious project to reforest over 5,000 hectares of degraded land on the Kuzuko Private Game Reserve in South Africa's Eastern Cape.
The restoration project is a partnership between Inqo Investments and AfriCarbon through its subsidiary, Spekboom Trading and has been funded through a long-term carbon finance agreement with Reforest'Action, a B Corp-certified reforestation specialist based in Paris, France.
The project, one of the largest of its kind, will contribute towards climate change through carbon sequestration, whilst restoring habitats to facilitate the return of biodiversity and to create jobs.
Ingo said the Kuzuko project is the first step in the long-term vision to restore more than one million hectares of degraded thicket across the Eastern Cape which, if achieved, will be a major contribution towards climate change and biodiversity.
The project, which began operations in August 2022, has seen over 30 million spekboom (Portulacaria afra) cuttings, an indigenous succulent tree, planted on 5,000 hectares of degraded land and created more than 400 local jobs.
“As the plants mature, we can increase the carrying capacity of animals on the reserve, increasing the area available for conservation work with endangered species,” said Inqo Investments director David Louw.
"We are delighted that this project, one of the largest reforestation projects in South Africa, has had both an environmental as well as a social impact in our region.”
AfriCarbon founder and director Anthony Mills the project is a direct response to the call for action by the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration for individuals and organisations to rapidly upscale the implementation of ecosystem restoration projects so that hundreds of millions of hectares of degraded land are restored by the year 2030.
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