Romario Valentine has been working hard to clean the beaches of South Africa and make sure indigenous, and food trees are planted throughout Africa.
Durban, South Africa (20 October 2021) – Romario Valentine is a pint-size planet warrior and artist from Umhlanga, Durban. He has dedicated the last four years of his young life to protecting our planet. A noble cause indeed!
Entirely focused on his passions, he has advocated for bird and marine conservation, climate change, and deforestation. Since starting, Romario has remarkably completed 180 beach clean-ups to date and planted over 455 trees worldwide.
He helped 900 endangered birds at Umgeni River Bird Park, Durban, during the covid-19 lockdown in 2020 and has raised over R55,000 in the last 12 months for bird species in Durban and in Western Cape. He did a Bird Habitat Restoration Campaign on BackABuddy for abandoned African Grey Parrots at Birds of Eden, Plettenberg Bay, Western Cape. The crowdfunding was used to raise funds to complete a 30×30m aviary so the birds can have a happy place to live freely. The bird sanctuary is home to 3,500 indigenous and exotic endangered birds and is the world’s largest free-flight aviary. He aims to prevent them from becoming extinct.
He has now planted/sponsored more than 455 trees in 22 countries through various local and international environmental organisations, including with (Durban) Ethekwini Municipality.
He received a donation of endangered Pepper Bark (Warburgia Salutaris) trees from SAPPI in collaboration with SANBI (South African National Biodiversity Institute). Some of the trees were planted at the Beverly Hills Hotel Umhlanga, the Durban Botanical Gardens, the Umgeni River Bird Park, the South Korean Community Centre, at a residence at Zimbali Coastal Resort & Estate and in Hillcrest.
His reforestation programme started in August 2020 and continues to flourish. For his 10th birthday, besides his bird campaign, he also raised funds for Acacia trees to be planted in the Segera, Kenya, via Zeitz Foundation.
His trees were planted last week by women from the community. Romario is following in the steps of one of his favourite eco-warriors, Dr Wangari Maathai.
Some of the other trees he has planted in Africa so far include baobab, coral, black bird berry, acacia, mango, mulberry, papaya and pepper bark.
10 of the 22 countries are in Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia, Zanzibar Island-Tanzania, Seychelles, Ethiopia, Senegal, Uganda and Ghana). The other 12 are Germany, Spain, UK (England & Scotland), Costa Rica, the Amazon forest in Brazil, Mexico, Canada, USA, Haiti, India, New Zealand.
Romario has been working to change the world, all from his home in Durban. If he can make this much change around the world, at the age of 10, imagine what kind of future he has in store. We cannot wait to see what he accomplishes next.
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