Two Changemakers promote ecosystem protection on TV

Depletion of the ecosystem has been of global concern in recent years. This is why this week’s edition of CNN African Voices Changemakers is dedicated to two activists who are driving efforts to protect the environment in their respective societies. The activists being celebrated are Albert Ndereki of Botswana and Frances Taylor of South Africa.

Ndereki is reputed to be one of the longest-serving members of the Botswana tourism industry and was one of the builders of the Game Lodge in 1971. At his Chobe Game Lodge, he manages the iconic ecotourism facilities, which include a bio-gas plant, massive water-treatment plants, solar-powered safari boats and a recycling plant where cans and glass bottles are crushed to make building bricks.

According to Globacom, which sponsors the programme, he has successfully mentored young people in Botswana’s rural areas to be responsible and diligent while nurturing the environment with the instrument of ecotourism.

The second guest, Taylor, is a co-founder of Communitree, a non-profit urban greening organisation in Cape Town, South Africa. The organisation was set up to re-green the city with gardens and trees through the conversion of overgrown or abandoned public spaces including parks, sidewalks and traffic junctions into indigenous and colourful fynbos gardens.

This is achieved with the removal of grass, weeds and other invasive vegetations which are then replaced with the fynbos gardens landscaped with footpaths and demarcated garden beds as feeding sites for sunbirds and insects like bees. The organisation has made a lot of impact in the control of habitat degradation, helped to restore original vegetation types, provided medicinal and economic values to citizens and encouraged the protection of the environment.