Misha Teasdale, Greenpop Tree-E-O says it best: “We have planted more than 139,000 trees over the last 10 years, but what makes me more excited than the trees are the thousands of hands that have helped us plant them.”

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Forests for Life partners have been hard at work planting trees without the help of volunteers. This month, we were privileged to host our first tree planting gathering with a few of Greenpop’s closest friends and supporters.

Our team was eager and excited to leave the city and do what we love most – plant trees! Packed up and ready to hit the road we passed through the city and in a blink of an eye we entered the magical forest area at the Bodhi Khaya Nature Retreat, near Gansbaai.

The Platbos Forest Reserve was Greenpop’s first forest restoration partner in the area. Over the last 10 years, 73,000 trees have been planted with the aim to restore degraded patches of the indigenous forest. This was our opportunity to celebrate the end of our active tree planting work at Platbos Forest as we branch out to a neighbouring site to partner with the Bodhi Khaya Nature Retreat.

As a start to the partnership between Greenpop and Bodhi Khaya, over 1,900 trees were planted. We would like to thank custodians of the land, Georgina Hamilton and Glenn Leisching, the Bodhi Khaya team and our hardworking volunteers for helping us kick-start this project.

In addition we also hosted a group of 15 children from the Grootbos Football Foundation for a day of tree planting and environmental education. This was made possible by the generous support of Cape Nature. The children were educated on the importance of mulching for the endemic trees that they were about to plant. A small but fierce victory to have the youth be involved in reforesting and learning how to care for the earth. Maxine Valentine (a facilitator) encapsulated this very well when she said, “Because they (the children) are the future. We need to teach them how to take care of nature to sustain the future.”

Soaking up the last little bit of silence and sunshine we all departed with a sense of refreshment, strengthening us to be back in the bustling city. Even though we might not have the luxury now to enjoy the full extent of the trees that we planted today, knowing that we contributed to history and thousands of years of shelter, oxygen, and shade to come holds enough fulfillment to appreciate what will become.

Keen to get your hands dirty for the planet? Join us at our upcoming Eden Festival of Action.

A warm thank you to the following partners that supported our efforts this weekend and fueled all the hard working planters. You are TREEmendous!

Eureka mills, Pesto Princess, Ou Meul Stanford, Jack Black, Afrikaburn, Boland Cellar, Okay Foods, AGT Food and Arise coffee.

All photo credits are awarded to Juliette Bisset