To commemorate World Environment Day celebrated on 5 June, every year, HSBC Mauritius volunteers were at Black River Gorges National Park on Monday 6 June, to weed out invasive exotic plants which are spreading and killing the native forest in the main national park of Mauritius. A big change to what we normally do, i,e replanting trees in the forest.
Our volunteers had the pleasure of being personally greeted by the Director of the National Parks and Conservation Service (NPCS), Mr. Kevin Ruhomaun. He wanted to salute HSBC’s existing partnership of over a decade with the NPCS.
His team guided and supervised the clearing activity throughout the day to ensure that no native plants are mistakenly or accidentally harmed.
Mr. Kersley Pynee, Mr. Shivan Bhogun, Mr. Mario Allet, Mr. Ben Ramen of the NPCS and Ms. Jayaneesh Namah, LCQB project coordinator are to be thanked for this successful event.
Contrary to previous years, HSBC volunteers made a conscious choice not to plant native trees in the Petrin forest in the Black River Gorges National Park, instead, inspired by Dr. Vincent Florens of the University of Mauritius, they decided to weed out invasive plants. As explained by the latter, the forest soil already contains a lot of native plants' seeds that are not germinating because of exotic plants like guava tree, watook, etc which grow mucy faster and take all the space. Hence, the decision to remove these exotic plants to allow the native seeds to sprout and the forest to regenerate at a faster pace. Indeed, as reinforced by the NPCS, removing invasive plants is way more efficient than planting native trees grown and supplied from a nursery.
This whole concept marks a turning point in our native forest restoration work in Petrin which dates back to 2013 and is being implemented by the Lions Club of Quatre Bornes (LCQB).
HSBC Mauritius has renewed funding to the LCQB for native forest restoration work with the NPCS, but with a new focus on carbon sequestration and pricing in the context of the global transition to Net Zero to address climate change.
For the 6 June activity, HSBC volunteers were joined by members of NGO Reef Conservation, led by Mr. Flavio Joseph, and by pupils of 2 state secondary schools (SSS) which are part of the National Eco-Schools Network, i.e. Vacoas SSS for Girls and Forest Side SSS for Girls.
This network is chaired by the Ministry of Education and is facilitated by NGO Reef Conservation. HSBC Mauritius is financing Reef Conservation to run among the Eco-Schools Network a biodiversity awareness raising project called #ONEwithNature. The project is aimed at teaching the youth about biodiversity loss as well as the skills to reverse it.