South African Journal of Botany 111: 371-386. Magee, A.R., Ebrahim, I., Koopman, R. and Van Staden, L. 2017.

Arbor Day is celebrated on the last Friday of April annually. This is a special day to celebrate trees like a birthday. Its purpose is to encourage people to learn about the importance of trees and how to protect them for us and future generations.

On 21 March each year, the world celebrates International Day of the Forest. This special day highlights the importance of forests to people such as cleaning the air we breathe for us and providing us with wood for creating books, stationery and musical instruments.

Marine biodiversity is the variety of plant and animal life that we find in the oceans and seas. Marine biodiversity must be preserved because it creates jobs through tourism, provides raw materials for medicine and acts as a food source for both human beings and other animals. 

Do we know what Cycads are?  These ancient plants go as far back as the dinosaurs. Cycads are slow-growing plants but can live hundreds of years and resemble a palm or fern but are not related.

Forests play a vital role in biodiversity. They provide food and shelter for the many species found in them. In forests, some animals live in the forest canopy while others live on the ground and under shrubs and all share an interconnected food chain.

There are some 2 600 species of fish in our seas including 270 families of fishes represented in South Africa, equivalent to 83% of all marine fish families known. Strikingly, up to 13% are endemic, ranking amongst the highest anywhere else in the world.

World Fisheries Day is celebrated every year on the 21st of November to highlight the importance of fish stocks in our oceans. Fishing provides food and jobs for people and in return boosts a country's economy. 

October is national Marine Month. This month is dedicated to celebrating our marine life. Did you know that our oceans produce more oxygen than the Amazon rainforest? They control our climate and give us food. Discover how we can protect our marine ecosystems for the health of the planet – and ourselves.

The world is made up of a variety of plants and animals, and we call the variety of life on Earth biodiversity. These make up the web of life, where each living thing depends on the other for survival.