THE REMOVAL OF YELLOW WOODS - (AN INDIGENOUS SPECIES) OFF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
This is VANDALISM!
BEFORE AND AFTER AND SOME LETTERS TO THE PRESS.
TREES BEFORE (estimate as we don't have any pics,- if you have please contact us!!.
AND NOW....(this was done about Feb/March 2010
BEFORE
AFTER......
And for some interesting reading. These writers reflect public opinion here in Cape Town. People are very angry and there was NO PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE OF THIS. One day the trees were here and the next gone!
No regard or care for the opinion whatsoever for the people of Cape Town ...read...
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SOME INTERESTING THOUGHTS FROM THE TOP!!!
PROFESSOR MOLL
Univercity of Cape Town....
SANPARKS FELLING MANY TREES WHICH HAVE GREAT CULTURAL VALUE. 2007
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I can accept the botanical arguments about the Table Mountain bio zone, its uniqueness, the impact upon it of a wide range of alien species that outcompete local species for light, water and other nutrients and that increase fire risks. I can accept that the local species need protection and that culling aliens species is a sound way of providing this protection.
However, I am proposing that it does not automatically follow that every square metre of Table Mountain should be cleared of all aliens. I am proposing that the wishes of the city's residents should be taken into account in preserving areas where these aliens are so long-standing and attractive that they provide amenities and beauty to the city.
While it may be difficult for the keenest advocates of the "indigenous plants only" school of thought to think of pines and gums as anything but dangerous invaders, it should nonetheless be possible to ring-fence some areas where they are embedded and provide utility, shade and character to our citizens.
I am thinking particularly of Rhodes Drive, the lower Tokai forest, the Cecilia forest, the area above Kirstenboch and Newlands forest including those magnificent pines above the junction of the N2 and M3. These are all in residential areas where residents and visitors take walks or simply gaze in awe at the magnificent trees that populate these areas. To remove them would be an act of undemocratic vandalism no matter what the justification.
By undemocratic I mean that Cape Town may be the only major city in the world with a national park right in the middle. The city has no jurisdiction over the national park, but the citizens interact with it every day.
All decisions are made elsewhere, on criteria that may have scientific merit but that avoid interaction with the wishes of the citizens who surround the park. There is no democratic process regarding the mountain range.
By vandalism I am simply reflecting the views of ordinary people. Those areas that I have mentioned represent a small percentage of the area of the park.
Yet those small areas are visually magnificent, helping to make Cape Town the beauty that it is. To chop down every tree in these areas would be so xenophobic as to be incomprehensible to ordinary citizens and foreign visitors, for whom shade as well as beauty are what "their" trees are about.
I am proposing a compromise. Steps can be taken to prevent self-seeding creep of these preserved areas so that the rest of the park (some 95 percent) can be recovered for the indigenous plants while minority areas can retain the magnificent trees that make Cape Town and its forests so attractive.
I urge Capetonians to express their preference for the retention of the core forests rather than their destruction.
Ian Cormack
Tokai
February 02, 2010 Edition 1
Ian Cormack (Cape Times, January 28) claims to accept the importance of the Table Mountain biozone, and that local species need protection. Why then can he not understand that the pine plantations at Cecilia and Tokai are not there by accident? They cannot be grown economically on the rest of the peninsula, which is sandstone Fynbos.
They are growing on the extremely rare peninsula granite Fynbos (endangered) and Cape Flats sand Fynbos (critically endangered). These types contain species and communities that do not occur in the widespread sandstone Fynbos. There is only 30 percent of the peninsula granite Fynbos remaining, much of which is still under pine plantations (but which still has intact Fynbos seed banks). It is now largely confined to the lower slopes of Table Mountain, from Camps Bay and Newlands, to Muizenberg. It has nine endemic and 24 threatened Red List plant species. By comparison, the entire province of Gauteng has 23 threatened Red List plant species.
Can people not comprehend the scale of biodiversity loss that is occurring right under our noses in Cape Town? This is not happening in some far away tropical forest. This is not happening on some remote melting ice cap. This is right here in Cape Town, where we work, and sleep and eat and play.
There are many opportunities for planting trees in the city's green lungs. For instance, the 18km of trails in the Constantia Green Belt, that was once granite Fynbos, is useless for ecosystem and plant conservation because fires are not possible. It still serves many useful ecological roles (such as water attenuation and supply, groundwater recharge, animal corridors, etc) as a tree-shaded parkland.
There is no need to have invasive alien trees in our national park. The risk is too great and the cost of further extinction is too high. Already the Wynberg conebush that used to occur in peninsula granite Fynbos is extinct. How many more species must become extinct before Capetonians wake up?
In fact, 13 species of plant are extinct in Cape Town. This is an unmitigated disaster. According to the 2009 IUCN Red List (sadly out of date), there are 114 extinct species of plant - by this account 10 percent of the world's extinct plant species are from Cape Town. Why is there not a public outcry?
But peninsula granite Fynbos is not the city's most threatened ecosystem. Cape Flats sand Fynbos - also under pine plantations at Tokai - has 16 endemic plant species and a whopping 92 threatened IUCN Red List species.
To even suggest that pine plantations should be maintained in so threatened an ecosystem is incomprehensible. Imagine if this was a tropical forest: people would be up in arms at the wanton destruction of biodiversity. Instead, Capetonians complain that if they walk their dogs in Fynbos, then they have to walk in the sun. Shame!
Ian Cormack proposes a ludicrous compromise: let us just carry on with our extinction spree by destroying the most precious and threatened types of Fynbos, so that he can enjoy some common alien tree. This illogical and stupid argument does not hold water. We must stop this extinction spasm.
We must not be duped into believing that plantations and alien trees are harmless and can be accommodated within our natural areas. There are plenty of areas within the city open space that can be planted to trees.
But the last remnants containing the last populations of species threatened with extinction cannot just be wiped out in the mistaken belief that all Fynbos is the same. Table Mountain National Park is the last hope of hundreds of plant species threatened with extinction in Cape Town (319 at the last survey.)
We do not live in some northern temperate country where biodiversity operates on large scales of mediocrity (dominated by trees). This is the Cape Floral Kingdom, where patterns of biodiversity are orders of magnitude more complex than in most other parts of the world. We need conservation action that recognises this, otherwise by 2020 there will be twice as many extinct species of plants (and the animals that depend on them) in Cape Town.
I am certain that the vast majority of foreign visitors and ordinary citizens will appreciate that we cannot allow species in our threatened habitats to become extinct.
There is nowhere else on earth where these species can be saved from extinction. Move the trees to the urban landscapes - to our green belts and parks. They are just as beautiful there. That is a compromise that may save Cape Town from becoming known as the biodiversity extinction capital of the world.
Dr Tony Rebelo
Threatened Species
Research Programme
South African National
Biodiversity Institute
Cape Town
February 04, 2010 Edition 1
The exchange of letters between Ian Cormack and Tony Rebelo about trees on Table Mountain neatly summarises the problem with the management of Table Mountain. Is it being managed by and for botanists and scientists, or for the ordinary people of Cape Town who have an equal right to enjoy it?
The letters contrast the difference between the ordinary person who values indigenous vegetation, and proposes a reasonable compromise which clears the mountain of hectares of pines and gums, but at the same time keeps a fringe of non-indigenous trees in certain limited areas to provide shade for those who hike the slopes, shade that cannot be provided by the generally small and bushy Fynbos.
The response is a classic of scientific intolerance, in which the common man's views are subject to a level of dismissal bordering on contempt. Cormack's attempt to compromise is called "ludicrous". His argument is "illogical and stupid". Want to walk your dog in shade? - the response is a sarcastic "shame!
Rebelo believes that "the vast majority of foreign visitors and ordinary citizens" will appreciate his attempt to return Table Mountain to some pre-colonial vision of bio-virginity, free of all traces of aliens. The truth is that the number of people who are aware of the difference between sandstone Fynbos, granite Fynbos and Cape Flats Fynbos is probably 1 percent of the people who love and enjoy Table Mountain. Who is making the decisions - that 1 percent who include some whose views border on eco-fascism, - or the 99 percent of ordinary Capeton-ians who love Fynbos but at the same time want to enjoy the mountains?
At times one wonders what world the scientists are living in. To listen to Rebelo, every person who even hints at some sort of compromise, is an "enemy of biodiversity" whose views must be dismissed, as he dismisses those of Cormack. The danger of this extreme view is that it alienates thousands of ordinary well-meaning people who love and value Fynbos, as well as the grandeur and beauty of some alien trees.
It is time the silent "ordinary" people ask the same questions Cormack asks. Who determines the policy relating to Table Mountain's trees? Where was the public consultation? To what extent were the views of the ordinary person taken into account, or were we presented with a botanical plan drawn up by a few scientists who believe they can decide for everybody?
Cormack put the nub of the problem succinctly: "Decisions relating to the management of the mountain are made on criteria that may have scientific merit but avoid interacting with the wishes of the citizens who surround the park. There is no democratic process surrounding the mountain range". It is time this changed.
Jonathan Schrire
Kenilworth
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February 05, 2010 Edition 1
I am replying to Dr Tony Rebelo's impassioned letter of February 2 that uses terms such as "incomprehensible" and "ludicrous" to describe my proposal for retaining the plantations that skirt the Constantia-to-Newlands area.
Rebelo's letter seems to demonstrate my point about the process being undemocratic. He takes it for granted that the priority for everyone who interacts with the park is that all native species should be preserved and all alien species be destroyed (ie all the trees felled).
If the affected population were asked to choose between losing some Fynbos species or losing all the trees in the park, each proposition would muster support. By no means everyone shares Rebelo's passion.
Rebelo illustrates by his intemperance and scorn exactly what people should fear when "experts" are placed in charge of issues. "Biodiversity" is used narrowly, meaning Fynbos biodiversity, when a range of physically attractive and shade-producing forests also represent a different kind of biodiversity. But it's not the kind Rebelo's specialism can tolerate - so anyone who proposes it is ridiculed. As I say, undemocratic.
Many people might vote to retain the plantations and lose the extra Fynbos - because they like trees in exactly the places where they are, not in the other places Rebelo suggests. They might even understand Rebelo's argument, yet still vote to retain the trees.
He might castigate them as idiotsand botanical renegades. However, they are entitled to their opinion based on their love of trees - perhaps incomprehensible to Rebelo but understandable to others.
The views of the "threatened species" specialists are clear. The question is - what are the views of the Capetonians and when will they be heard?
Ian Cormack
Tokai
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A vanished resource
February 05, 2010 Edition 1
Ironically, Jonathan Schrire's letter (Cape Times, February 4) actually vindicates Tony Rebelo's point of view. Schrire states that, in his opinion, only about one percent of people are aware of the difference between sandstone Fynbos, granite Fynbos and Cape Flats fynbos.He may well be correct.
Why? Because these particular types of Fynbos are no longer there, so people do not recognise them. If they were present and either development or alien tree plantations were proposed on these sites, I am quite sure that these same well-meaning, but ignorant, citizens would be up in arms.
This part of southern Africa is unique. Our country's biodiversity is strongly emphasised in the school science curriculum.
This is not about democracy. It is about attempting to preserve our natural heritage for future generations.
Bridget Farham
Noordhoek
MOST OF THE BIG TREES IN CAPE TOWN ARE FOREIGNER - OR ALIEN SPECIES,- is it 95% or 99% - start observing yourself!!!
A critical and important campaign GONE MAD! I suppose many south Africans are still to hard wired into this stereo-type, black white / us them, infantile thinking, to manage a legitimate "ALIEN INVADER" problem without becoming intoxicated and creating a foreigner witch hunt. Horrible,- but it seems to happen here with the poor folk from Zim and Mozambique,- And of course the Oaks from Europe too! : )
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