Dubbed the "Platbos Reforest Fest", the two-day event will feature the planting of 1000 trees indigenous to the Platbos Forest by approximately 100 volunteers during the day, and live music by Jeremy Loops at night. The event will be a part of Platbos Forest's Trees for Tomorrow reforestation programme, which has already procured more than 2225 trees.
In addition to helping Platbos through the planting of trees, the initiative will also benefit the forest by highlighting it as an eco-tourism hotspot. Thus, it will not only raise awareness of the need to reforest Platbos, but will increase the economic benefits of doing so; the more beautiful and spacious the forest, the more eco-tourists it will draw. Through this eco-tourism publicity increase, Greenpop also hopes to aid the Overberg region economically as a whole. The project will also help to reduce South Africa's carbon footprint.
Platbos is particularly unique because of its rare merging of two usually separate biomes and botanists from around the world come to marvel at, and study, the forest's distinctive flora. The area has particular significance from a biodiversity-oriented perspective, as the merging of the mountainous and coastal biomes could give rise to unique species of plants and animals.
Less than 0.56 percent of South Africa is covered by indigenous forest (0.05 percent in the Western Cape) and what's left requires active management to ensure its long-term survival.
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