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Re topella dikgong: What Bapedi tree wisdom still teaches us in September
September in South Africa does two jobs at once. The first week is Arbor Week. The whole month is Heritage Month. That is not a coincidence worth wasting.
Trees are heritage you can stand under. For Bapedi families in Limpopo and many other families, a living tree is firewood later, medicine when needed, shade in the heat, and the factory floor of edible insects. Cut the tree for a quick fire and you steal from next season’s plate.
Bapedi elders put it cleanly:
“Re topella dikgong, mohlare wa go phela ga o rengwe.”
We collect dead wood, because the living tree must keep growing.
That is indigenous conservation. Not a poster. A rule for the woodland.
Why indigenous trees matter
An indigenous tree already knows the soil, the rain and the insects of this country. Plant the right one and it does more than look green.
It holds soil when the storms come. It feeds bees, beetles and birds. It stores carbon. It cools a yard. In Limpopo and other mopaneveld, it is also food infrastructure. Mopane caterpillars(Seboko/Diboko tsa Mohlanare), Giant jewel beetles (Lebitsi/Mabitsi) and edible Stinkbugs (Podile/Dipodile) do not appear from nowhere. They appear where the right trees still stand.
Chop a healthy tree and you do not only lose wood. You lose flowers, leaves, shade, harvest and the next generation of that tree. Firewood should come from wood that has already fallen or died. Cutting a living tree for a fire is waste.
Some indigenous trees are also protected by law. Even where they are not, the old rule still holds: take what is already down. Leave what is still growing.
What to plant
You do not need a forest. One well-chosen indigenous tree, watered through its first summers, is a real Arbor Week act.
Good trees for many South African gardens and school grounds:
• Mopane (Colophospermum mopane) — Mohlanare. Home of mopane caterpillars. Best where it already belongs: warm, low-rainfall mopaneveld, not a wet suburban pavement.
• Sweet thorn (Vachellia karroo) — Mookana. hardy, flowers that feed insects, a classic savanna tree loved by giant jewel beetles.
• Sickle bush (Dichrostachys cinerea) — Moretshe. the pink-and-yellow “Chinese lantern” flowers of the bushveld loved by giant jewel beetles.
• Mosehla / African weeping wattle (Peltophorum africanum) — summer-yellow, loved by pollinators and by Dipodile, the edible stinkbugs.
Match the tree to your climate. A mopane forced into the wrong place is not conservation. A sweet thorn, or mosehla in the right yard is.
If you cannot plant this year, protect a young tree that is already trying. Fence it from goats. Water it. Stop the veld fire before it starts.
Why we do not chop the living tree
Because the harvest depends on it.
Mopane caterpillars need mopane leaves. Giant Jewel beetles need flowering bushveld trees. Stinkbugs gather where Mosehla and related trees bloom. Families who still collect masonja and other edible insects are not “going backwards.” They are using a food system that only works if the woodland is left standing.
The good rules are the same ones children learn in Mopani Valley:
• Do not set fire to the woodland.
• Do not climb trees and break branches to harvest insects.
• Take only what you need.
• Leave some insects for the next season.
• Protect young trees so the woodland can grow again.
Sustainability, in plain language: use nature today so there is still enough tomorrow.
Thori in Mopani Valley
That is the world Thori walks into when she visits her grandparents. Tall mopane trees stretch across the woodland in Limpopo and other warm parts of southern Africa. They are the special home of mopane caterpillars.
Nearby, sweet thorn and sickle bush fill the savanna. Their flowers help feed Lebitsi, the giant jewel beetle. Mosehla trees bloom after summer rain and pull in pollinators — and Dipodile (Stinkbugs).
CaterKidz books were written so children meet those trees as characters in a living food culture, not as captions in a worksheet.
The trees, the insects and the rules sit together in the CaterKidz Explorer Guide — the same pages families use for classroom talks, Heritage Month corners and woodland walks.
What to do this September
Plant an indigenous tree if you have the ground. Teach a child the Sepedi line about dead wood. Buy the book if you want the story in the house. Download the free guide if you want the rules on the classroom wall.
Heritage Month asks who we are. Arbor Week asks what we are leaving.
A living tree answers both.
Let’s Get Buggy!
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