NEWSFLASH NEWS AGENCY 3 February 10:30 am

Good morning, here is your Eco Minute:

# The mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis, yesterday led the start of a major city-wide clean-up campaign in Mitchells Plain Town Centre. He said in the January Adjustment Budget, the council has allocated five-million-rand for a city-wide clean-up campaign of especially illegal dumping hotspots. He pointed out the City spends more than 300-million-rand a year on cleaning up such spots:

Play sound: ENG GordinHillLewisONCeanUp

# A new mathematical study puts the total number of tree species on earth at 73-thousand-274. The researchers mathematically extrapolated this figure to say that another nine-thousand-186 trees are still to be discovered. Roughly 40-percent of these undiscovered tree species are in South America. This came to light during the collaboration of a team of 146 researchers of which a biomathematician in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Stellenbosch University, Cang Hui, was part. Hui says scientists, however, still lack a fundamental understanding of how many species there are, even though trees are among the most widespread organisms on the planet.

# And finally:  South Africa celebrated the declaration of its 28th wetland of international importance yesterday on World Wetlands Day. The minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, says the Berg Estuary in the Western Cape was declared as a Ramsar Site under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance. Situated at Velddrif, close to St Helena Bay where the Berg River flows into the sea, this estuary spans an area of more than a thousand hectares. The main estuarine channel encompasses five major wetland types and is home to 250 species of waterbirds.

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