Earth Night conservation initiative raises R400,000

A standard feature at any Earth Night is an auction of around 15 lots to raise funds for conservation. The lots included travel packages, luxury holidays and art pieces. An exciting item in the programme was the lucky prize draw for the Praia do Cossa Hotel & Resort in Mozambique, and gave the winner ownership of a sectional title unit at the resort for one week for 15 years.

Another popular item that formed part of the auction was donated by retired cricketer, Shaun Pollock, who also attended the event. The piece donated by Pollock was a Championship Trophy presented to him in 1999 by Standard Bank, for being the first South African to achieve the double of 100 wickets and 1 000 runs in one day internationals. This was the most popular piece of the night, fetching R32 000 which will be used as part of Wildlands' efforts to curb the rhino poaching crisis.

Two cheques handed over

Wildlands were also pleasantly surprised when Craig Drysdale, head of Global Sales for Thompsons Africa, handed over two cheques to them. The first cheque was for an amount of R30,000, raised by Thompsons at the Tourism Indaba, and another from Goway for just over R53,000 raised through a campaign Looking out for Rhino.

"In November last year Goway received a mail from Thompsons Africa highlighting the excellent work that the Wildlands Conservation Trust is doing for rhino conservation and this is a cause that resonated with them completely," said Drysdale. "Bruce Hodge, founder and president of Goway, is committed to the preservation of the world's unique environment and wildlife, and this is a value that he has instilled in the company at all levels. It was initially decided to launch a four month promotion during which Goway would donate an amount of $20 for every brochure lodge booked. After extending the promotion validity twice, they have now embraced this as an ongoing project. They are delighted to hand over this cheque and look forward to a long and successful association with Wildlands," said Drysdale.

Clean and green

"Earth Night was inspired by a group of 3,000 individuals, demonstrating that it is possible to clean and green even the most seemingly hopeless communities, which has ultimately thrown a challenge to us," Dr Andrew Venter, CEO of Wildlands said.

Wildlands is an environmental non-profit organisation that is driven by their vision of a Sustainable Future for All. The Wildland's Trees for Life project educates and nurtures Tree-preneurs. These Tree-preneurs, based in rural areas, grow indigenous trees to barter for food, bicycles, Jojo tanks, education support and building material. The young trees bartered with Wildlands are then planted into areas in desperate need of reforestation or greening.