Amazon is backing a scheme to plant 180 million carbon-absorbing shrubs – one of the world’s largest nature-based carbon removal projects.
The spekboom plants will be grown over 200 square miles of degraded land in South Africa’s Eastern Cape – an area double the size of Birmingham – to revive the ecosystem and boost local communities.
Historical land use has left its landscape eroded, barren and unable to support livelihoods.
By absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it within leaves and roots, plants like spekboom act as natural carbon sinks, helping to reduce greenhouse gases, improve soil health and fight climate change.
Also known as ‘elephant bush’, the native, carbon-absorbing plant was selected for its ability to restore moisture and biodiversity to degraded landscapes.
To enable this planting, which will finish by the end of 2028, Amazon joined forces with the World Bank and a range of financial institutions.
The project forms part of its work toward its Climate Pledge goal to reach net-zero carbon by 2040.
Kara Hurst, Amazon’s chief sustainability officer, said: “This is a story about nature, community, ingenuity, and scale. Spekboom is a natural wonder, but it can’t heal the land without help from the people who call the Eastern Cape home.
“This project will restore the ecosystem and create jobs – a model for how nature-based solutions can enable both climate action and economic development.”
Often described as an ‘ecosystem engineer,’ spekboom, (Portulacaria afra) thrives in arid soils where other plants cannot survive, making it perfectly suited to the region’s harsh landscape.
Reaching several metres in height, it creates dense vegetation cover, and in some cases removes carbon from the atmosphere at the rate of a young tropical rainforest.
The drought-resistant succulent creates a microclimate and soil conditions that enable native plants to regrow naturally, helping to drive the return of shrubs, grasses, insects, birds, and mammals to the ecosystem.
The project area supports 165 recorded species – 46 animal and 119 plant – including four vulnerable species of concern to conservationists.
Aiming to create approximately 11,000 jobs by 2030 in one of South Africa’s most disadvantaged regions, the project will give local small and medium-sized enterprises training in ecological reforestation.
This investment is a long-term purchase agreement for carbon credits – supporting emerging carbon removal solutions – and one of the largest private-sector commitments to nature-based restoration in South Africa’s history.
