Boplaas Family Vineyards in Calitzdorp has joined the fight for climate change, and is urging others to take the step with them and plant a spekboom! The wine farm wants to plant one million spekbooms by 2025 in the fight for climate change. ‘The Humble Spekboom’ According to WineLand, ‘the humble’ spekboom can gobble up between four and 10 tons of carbon per hectare per year. It is said to be South Africa’s ‘wonder plant’. “It is a bright green, small-leaved plant with a contrasting red stem found in Southern Africa that seems ordinary but don’t be fooled – it is a very special plant!’ It ultimately helps to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by acting like a carbon sponge, improving the quality of air we breathe. More specifically, spekboom can absorb between four to ten tonnes of carbon per hectare. “This incredible tree uses carbon to make plant tissue and produce oxygen. According to The Spekboom Foundation, spekboom’s capacity to offset harmful carbon emissions is compared to that of moist, subtropical forests. This remarkable plant is unique in that it stores solar energy to perform photosynthesis at night. This makes a spekboom thicket 10 times more effective per hectare at carbon fixing than any tropical rainforest.” The spekboom is also great at adapting to its surroundings and can flourish almost anywhere. It makes wonderful hedges and beautiful shrubs and, can be planted in fields, flowerbeds and pots. Boplaas has over 2 000 hectares of veld under conservation where the variety occurs naturally. In addition to planting more, this project will actively distribute spekboom cuttings from the Boplaas farm in Calitzdorp and the wine tasting room in Klein Brak River on the Garden Route. “Our goal at Boplaas is to escalate plantation of the spekboom through strategic partnerships and as a wider aim to spread awareness. We want to encourage its cultivation in private gardens, on estates and on farms,” Carel Nel, owner of Boplaas, told the publication. Carel also said that they will distribute information on how further cuttings can be made and the best way to plant them. The spekboom requires very little maintenance and can survive with only the most minimal amounts of water. “If we can get 1 000 people to plant 100 plants, that’s 100 000 spekboom shrubs helping us fight global climate change,” says Carel.