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SA living flag will be seen from space

Graaff-Reinet – The Camdeboo Municipality in Graaff-Reinet will be home to the largest South African flag ever constructed on our planet, dubbed the "Living Flag".

What makes this initiative even more remarkable is that the flag will be made almost entirely from plants local to the Karoo.

The Giant flag initiative was launched this week at the Valley of Desolation in the Camdeboo National Park.

The flag will be 66ha (that's about 66 soccer fields) and made up of 2.5 million desert plants, this includes cacti and spekboom.

The project will begin construction in 2015 and when finished the flag will be visible from space.

The black triangle that forms part of our national flag will a 4MW solar field, Guy Lieberman, the brains behind the project, told News24.

Electricity created from the project will go directly into the Camdeboo Municipality.

Lieberman hopes that the project will generate a socio-economic shift in the community in order to change the lives and fortunes of those living in the Camdeboo area.

According to Camdeboo Mayor Hanna Makobah, 40% of those living n the municipality are unemployed.

South Africa’s Deputy Minister in the Department of Tourism, Tokozile Xasa, called the Giant Flag project a "game-changing initiative" within the tourism industry

Xasa praised it for its skills and enterprise development components as well as its value as an engine for creating direct and indirect employment.

The building phase of this project will cost R170m but when completed its should provide more than 700 permanent jobs.

In total the project will cost R180m to complete.

Valley-of-desolation
The Valley of Desolation. (News24)

So far, a number of private and governmental organisations have agreed to sponsor the project; this included the Development Bank of South Africa.

The flag once completed will be nestled on 100ha of municipal land, but the area will not only be composed of the living flag itself, but also various smaller buildings will be built for supporting staff.

Currently organisers are still trying to secure more funding for the project and have created a inventive way of securing funding from donors.

If you want to become a part of the project, you can buy a plant within the flag and then use Google Maps to actually monitor your plant and determine where it is on the living flag.

Valley-of-desolation
A view point from on top of The Valley of Desolation. (News24)

Organisers hope this would allow people in South Africa and abroad to become more interactive with the project, rather than just funding an abstract idea.

For more information check the video below.

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