PRESS RELEASE Governments’ Working on Fire (WoF) programme have fought and contained over 270 wild fires in the Western Cape since the start of December this year. The number of fires peaked in January with February, the hottest and windiest month, being quieter than expected so far despite lower than average rainfall. Graham Barlow, General…
If the Forestry Exit Strategy, that is currently ruling the management of Grabouw’s plantations, is not reversed within eighteen months, it will be too late to save the region’s 100-year old forestry industry, with the loss of 12,000 jobs. Within just eighteen months there will be so little timber to process that remaining sawmills will…
A Report of the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 2011 posted on the Parliamentary Monitoring Group’s website, best explains the policy: “The South African Forestry Company Ltd (SAFCOL) was established in 1992 to manage state owned plantations on a fully commercial basis and to report a profit. The state’s commercial plantations were…