KwaZulu-Natal Business 2016-17 edition

INTERVIEW
Wetland, Mondi Gilboa.
Modernised forestry operations.
We place great importance on proactive and
responsible stewardship of forests as well as freshwater
ecosystems and maintaining biodiversity and
habitats.
Responsible forest management involves increasing
long-term productivity and preserving
ecosystem values in rural landscapes, and protecting
high conservation value areas such as wetlands.
The Mondi Group is also a long-standing supporter
of the WWF-Mondi Wetlands Programme
(WWF-MWP), which celebrates its 25th anniversary
in 2016. The programme focuses on managing
and rehabilitating wetlands with different groups
of land-users (including Mondi) where we have
improved wetland management on our forestry
land while removing commercial trees from riparian
zones and wetlands. The WWF-MWP is now
part of our global partnership with WWF. The
programme’s focus is shifting to catalysing water
stewardship at the landscape scale, ensuring collaboration
and action by different land-users in
the uMngeni and Mvoti River catchments, both
of which are strategically important water-supply
areas for KZN’s economic hubs.
To what extent do you engage with local
communities and play a role in development
and upliftment of those communities?
We engage with a wide range of stakeholders,
including government, NGOs, suppliers and communities,
and the latter are a major focus of our
investment in health, education and local enterprise.
69 KWAZULU-NATAL BUSINESS 2016/17