National Arbor City Awards 2021 competition entries

Introduction and background

The year 2021 will mark the 19th year of the Arbor City Award competition. To date a total of 43 municipalities have won the competition. These included the local municipalities and metropolitan municipalities. The efforts that the various municipalities have put in to ensure that they emerge victorious are commendable. This has made the competition more meaningful and challenging. It must however be said that the challenging or difficult part of it can be over-come by learning from previous winners and entering the competition frequently.

The 2021 National Arbor City Awards will once again take place in line with a partnership programme between the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), TOTAL South Africa and the Institute of Environment and Recreation Management (IERM). The competition is still sponsored by TOTAL South Africa.

The competition provides incentives and rewards to municipalities who are doing their best in terms of greening, especially in the townships and new settlement areas. Most municipalities made great strides in the past years to expand the greening and other landscape developments from the past focus on towns and suburbs to also include townships and new settlements areas. This move has rewarded the latter areas with street trees, recreational parks and in some areas physical training and gym facilities.

Municipalities are further encouraged to involve youth in their projects. Should a municipality be able to demonstrate youth involvement in its programmes or projects, it will stand a better chance in attaining the ward.

It is now a known fact that the world in general is starting to feel the effects of global warming and in particular climate change. This phenomenon is an environmental threat resulting from emissions of Green House Gases in the atmosphere. All of us will have to face this phenomenon head on by adopting mitigation strategies and adapt our actions towards it. These changes in climate may have significant effects on various sectors globally. Tree planting which forms the basis of Arbor City Awards is one of the mitigating factors that are recommended towards the slowing down of this environmental threat. It is for this reason that the Department is pursuing the National Arbor City Awards Competition together with the Arbor Month Campaign and the Two Million Trees Programme. It is acknowledged that tree-planting programmes will have to rely on other supporting programmes such as environmental education and awareness to inform and educate society in general of the importance of the trees within the environment and their role in mitigating environmental threats.

The National Arbor City Awards are conducted in line with the DFFE greening strategy which defines greening as ‘an integrated approach to the planting, care and management of all vegetation in urban and rural areas, to secure multiple benefits for communities and the citizens in general. Greening is a task that requires multi-disciplinary approaches that include precise scientific knowledge and skills, socio - economic balancing and planning. In order to achieve the objective of greening, a combination of technical expertise, socio-economic balance and capacity building skills are required.

About the 2021 National Arbor City Awards Competition

The President has given a directive for the planting of at least two million trees annually for the next five years in an effort to green our cities, towns, townships and reclaim the degraded areas. The department has developed a plan which among other issues reflects on the creation of sustainable settlements, addressing household food security, climate amelioration as well as a contribution towards the provision of recreation facilities for communities in urban and rural areas.

A greater component of the greening function is aligned to the work done by municipalities, the Department of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation and other greening organisations. This is a result of the notion that a building or without some greenery is not complete in terms of the quest to create sustainable and dignified settlements for our people.

The 2021 National Arbor City Awards competition will be conducted in all nine provinces. It will involve all municipalities that will be found legible to enter. In light of Covid-19 implications on the municipalities there will be a slight change in the approach and criteria. The criteria have been set and agreed upon by various stakeholders.

Purpose and objectives of the competition

The purpose of the competition is to encourage municipalities to green their areas of jurisdiction. The awards are a quest to promote environmental conservation and development thereby securing a healthy living environment for residents in all settlement areas.

The other objectives include the following:

To promote the Two Million Trees Programme
To promote the development of provincial and local greening plans
To extend greening in Municipalities to new settlement areas
To ensure compliance with relevant greening legislations both local and national
To raise general awareness about the importance and value of trees in residential settlements
To provide incentives for local authorities that go an extra mile to green their areas
To provide a platform for diagnosis of challenges facing Municipalities regarding the greening function and discuss solutions

Entry requirements and form

NACA 2021 entry form [3.4 mb - compatibility mode]

Entry requirements for metropolitan municipalities are as follows:

Portfolio of evidence showing mainly: Concept/ proposal on strategy for the municipality to advance the Two Million Trees Programme.
Current and future tree planting projects to advance the Two Million Tree Programme
Greening policy or strategy, tree register, maintenance plans and budget
Portfolio of evidence in videos or pictures depicting projects, sites and, special trees
A narrative not exceeding two pages indicating why the Municipality hopes to be the winner of the National Arbor City Award 2021

Entry requirements for category B municipalities are as follows:

Portfolio of evidence showing mainly: Concept/ proposal on strategy for the municipality to advance the Two Million Trees Programme.
Current and future tree planting projects to advance the Two Million Tree Programme
Portfolio of evidence showing greening policy or strategy, tree register,
maintenance plans and budget
Portfolio of videos or pictures depicting projects, sites, special trees
A narrative not exceeding two pages indicating why the municipality hopes to be the
winner of the National Arbor City 2021

Entry requirements for category - rural municipality (with potential) - are as follows:

Concept/ proposal on strategy for the municipality to advance the Two Million Trees Programme
Current and future tree planting projects to advance the Two Million Trees Programme
Portfolio of evidence showing potential in greening
A written account of environmental and greening projects by the municipality
A narrative not exceeding two pages indicating why the municipality hopes to be the winner of the National Arbor City Award 2021

Evaluation criteria, adjudication and awards process

The evaluation criteria focus on the following aspects:

Greening policy and strategy
The municipality concept/proposal on advancing the Two Million Trees Programme
Space for future tree planting, planning and development of wide sidewalks
The development and conservation of greenbelts, natural assets in new and existing residential settlements
Greening in (townships), low-income cost housing
Public participation programme/ tree awareness and education
Future and current tree planting projects to advance the Two Million Trees Programme
Management and maintenance operations
Tree administration
Programmes on eradication of undesirable alien invasive
Prevention of disastrous occurrences like wild fires
Involvement in partnerships, national and provincial environmental campaigns
Use of trees to give the town/ city a definitive character
Resource allocation to greening and related functions

Adjudication and awards process

Entries will be short listed according to the criteria provided and the short listed entries will be evaluated through visits to the specific municipalities. During the visits municipalities will be requested to make brief presentations and to show the panel of evaluator’s relevant projects in the municipality.

The adjudication process

The evaluation will be done based on portfolio of evidence received from the municipalities and the first shortlist will be done. The shortlisted municipalities will then be further evaluated as follows:

The municipalities will send in the greening plans to advance the two million trees target of the country
The PoE (including the proposal) will be assessed
Panel members will visit projects of final shortlisted municipalities to verify PoE’s – (subject to Covid-19 alert levels and regulations)
Judges will complete scoring sheets
An average score will be calculated to determine the winner
The process is subject to ratification by DFFE Minister

Adjudication panel

The evaluation panel will be composed as follows:

DFFE (National)
TOTAL South Africa - Head Office
Institute of Environment and Recreation Management (IERM) - Head Office
The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI)

Award ceremony and prizes

The National Arbor City Awards ceremony will be combined with the National Arbor Month launch event (which is usually held on 1 September). The mayors of the winning 2021 National Arbor City Award Competition municipalities receive the prizes at the event. Three prizes will be awarded: one for the metropolitan municipality, one for the category (B) local municipality and one for the rural (local) municipality with potential. The (B) local municipality has first and second prizes

Enquiries

The closing date for competition entries is 30 June 2021.

For further information regarding the competition, please contact:

Mr Michael Modise:
Tel: 012 309 5787
E-mail: michaelmod@daff.gov.za or mimodise@environment.gov.za

Ms Nosipho Ndzimbomvu
Tel: 012 309 5883
E-mail: nndzimbomvu@environment.gov.za