Experts say the likes of wattle trees, gum trees and pine trees are just a few, which were imported more than a century ago at a time when no-one was aware of the water crisis South Africa would face today.

Programme director for Green Business Value Chain, Jules Newton, said many of these trees had already been banned in South Africa.

“Most of us don’t know them and we grow them happily in our gardens. The Department of Environmental Affairs has an enormous project where they are creating employment by putting people in the field to cut down as much of those trees as possible. But government’s budgets don’t stretch as far as being able to eradicate the problem.”

Eyewitness News