Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo (JCPZ) is collaborating with the Johannesburg Parks Alliance (JPA) through a ‘Partnership Action Imbizo’ to develop vibrant, green, safe, and sustainable public parks.

The entities held a partnership event at the George Lea Park in Sandton on Thursday, 23 June 2022 as part of the R1-billion green campaign, which is a multi-year initiative looking at the power of greening to address environmental and socio-economic issues.

“No longer is the dependency solely with the government to mitigate climate change. Joburg needs an alliance with the private sector to offset our carbon footprint, to create a liveable city,” said the Member of the Mayoral Committee for Community Development, Councillor Ronald Harris.

The City’s primary focus is on the green economy, including carbon sequestration programmes such as tree planting, rejuvenating parks, waste minimisation efforts, environmental education, and public participation programmes by various entities. There’s also a focus on the rollout of smart Wi-Fi-enabled benches in city parks, inner-city park safety programmes, CCTV cameras in municipal parks, and the JCPZ invasive tree and plant species eradication programmes.

To achieve these objectives, Cllr Harrison says the City is working closely with private companies like Vumacam, Jozi Trails, Mushroom Farm Park (carbon-neutral smart upgrades), Sustainable Recycling, and Giant Steps in Soweto, to name a few. These partnerships all serve the same purpose within the City, to enhance community involvement, create safer green spaces, and build a better City, he said.

Bohlale Mohlathe, the Manager for Business Development at JCPZ said greening the environment is a municipal mandate and the City entity charged with the role plans to reclaim all the open spaces around Johannesburg in a bid to create employment.

Mohlathe conceptualised the Partnership Action Imbizo to shine a spotlight on the importance of public-private partnerships and how these can be used optimally as a catalyst to transform the current state of public open spaces while addressing socio-economic challenges in the City.

She says suggested projects will be monitored and evaluated over the next 12 months as part of a basket of pilot initiatives to assess their viability in the hope they can be replicated in communities across Johannesburg.

“The increasing cost of restoring vandalised green infrastructure and removing illegally dumped waste while retrofitting cities to absorb the future impact of climate change requires commitment from every citizen, scholar and City entity,” said Jenny Moodley, the Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo General Manager for Stakeholders and Public Relations.

Johannesburg is considered a man-made forest after reclaiming its status as South Africa’s greenest municipality in the annual Greenest Municipality Competition (GMC) Awards and aims to continue attracting large investments, ensure service delivery, create jobs, and sustain environmentally friendly parks.

“Johannesburg Parks Alliance is willing to work with JCPZ in the next few years regardless of who takes power in the political world. What we are doing is not only going to impact Joburg but the entire continent,” remarked the Chairperson of the Johannesburg Parks Alliance, Sunil Geness.

Cllr Harris stated that this innovative initiative, signed during World Environment Month, provides the City with an incredible opportunity to reimagine green public open spaces. The municipality urges the community to collaborate with the City to redress environmental concerns and tackle environmental degradation.