Street Trees Distribution

Johannesburg

Johannesburg has approximately 37,000 species of Jacaranda’s tree. It is currently considered the largest man-made urban forest in the world. Although the tree responds well to the climate conditions, together with the Eucalyptus and English Oak tree, the species were introduced in the beginning of 1900s to support the minings wood needs.
        With the change in mining structures and current societal challenges such as the highly polluted urban spaces and climate change, the tree gained a different value for providing several ecosystem services and becoming the ‘lungs and kidneys’ of cities: filtering air, water and noise pollution, while decreasing heat island effects, slowing down potential storm water flooding, soil erosion among others.