Whether you’re a climate change carbon crusader or a global warming sceptic, at the end of the day, the world’s a cooler place with more trees. “Kayden Kleinhans”

This project was designed to assist in offsetting the huge 2 753 251 tons emitted during the South African 2010 Football World Cup. Converting the carbon free kilometers clocked up on the Global Wheelers around the world eco charity bicycle ride into indigenous trees, this initiative hopes to make a dent in the right direction.

According to a study done by the Norwegian government coupled with an info-graph compiled by EU infrastructure, the South African 2010 Football World Cup’s carbon footprint is a whopping 6 times larger than its German predecessor. This is largely due to the requirements for newly built infrastructure and long travel distances to the event.

Now there are no sour faces, nor are there any complaints about having some of the world’s most modern stadiums as a result of this magnificent event. Not to mention the fantastic addition of the Gautrain and newly constructed transport networks we now have the luxury of using. There is however the very real and very pressing issue of the huge environmental ramifications of creating these first world treasures on African soil.

In an attempt to help offset, as well as celebrate the event, this tree project was born and is now looking to all participants, sponsors, visitors and South Africans that enjoyed the World Cup to rally behind the initiative to sponsor a kilometer and plant a tree. If you weren’t here, and you couldn’t give a hoot about football or the World Cup, bang a tree in the ground anyway, it feels good.

The indigenous trees are being planted in the Western Cape region of South Africa in various locations and sites from schools to municipal fynbos regeneration projects and RDP low cost housing developments in an attempt to negate deforestation and assist in greening unattractive urbanised areas.

Working with local municipalities to plant the trees, affords Global Wheeling the luxury of not keeping a labour force on the books. Coupled with the fact that Global Wheeling is a virtually run NGO with very little running costs, this enables 100% of donations to go to the intended cause, unlike many other NGO’s which seem to pump minimal percentages of public raised funds into their initiatives, Global wheeling boasts a clean record.

Sponsor a carbon free kilometer and plant a tree in South Africa.  $15 / +- R100 will do the trick.

The online payment gateway on the Global Wheeling website is managed by PayPal and is there for represented in US Dollar denominations. It costs roughly one hundred South African Rand (R100) to successfully put a tree in the ground. The figure is thus represented by a 15 dollar button on the website, this does not however prohibit donations from various locations around the world, as most global currencies are accepted, and PayPal will merely deduct 15 dollars from your account on the day’s current exchange rate with your local currency.

Global Wheeling is working towards creating a TEXT TO DONATE option on the website that will enable South African residents to make donations to the cause via text message; this will be in South African Rands. Please be patient during the process of implementing this new addition to the site.