The Future |
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Politics
Take Part in the International Climate Prediction Experiment An Urban Park for All
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Urban Forest Protection Group |
Bret Myrdal, the manager of Table Mountain National Park assures us he got a 100 year plan. However, even if he had a plan, according to this study the future of fynbos in the Tokai forest looks bleak... The Impact of Climate Change on Protea and Fynbos The Center for Applied Biodiversity Science (CABS) at Conservation International is leading efforts to anticipate those changes and incorporate them into long-term conservation strategies. Research includes a recent modeling study of more than 300 species of the protea family in South Africa’s Cape Floristic Region Hotspot. Led by CABS biologist Lee Hannah and South African researcher Guy Midgley, the study determined that the vast majority of these spectacular flowering plants, many of them endemic to the Cape, will lose much of their present climatic range. “They will follow cooler temperatures up slope into smaller and smaller areas in the mountains,” Hannah explains. “Some species will lose all climatic range.” Our prediction is after the trees are cut and fynbos does not grow the TMNP will sell the present Tokai forest land to developers to finance another pay increase. "Cape water crisis to get worse" The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has warned that South Africa will become one of the two driest places on Earth as climate change tightens its grip globally. The WWF also warned that the Western Cape would run out of fresh water by 2015. Of course they always try to scare us and hope to open our pockets and get some donations, but this time they might have a point. One gets the impression SANPark / Table Mountain National Park´s main objective is to close the FREE access to the Park for the public and charge fees for almost everything to pay for the management´s lavish salaries, which will reach ca. R 2,000,000 for the top manager in 2 years time at the present rate of increases . ALL THE PINES TREES IN TOKAI AND CECILIA PLANTATIONS TO BE FELLED BY 2025 "By 2025 all the pine trees in Cecilia and Tokai plantations will be gone and no new plantations will be established in their place."
Actually, almost all will be felled by 2015 !
Say goodbye to the face of Tokai and the Constantiaberg Valley as you know it. Say goodbye to vistas of mountain slopes clad in forest. Say goodbye to vineyards edged by trees. Say goodbye to shady places in which to walk and ride. Say goodbye to the calls of sparrow hawks, owls, chaffinches and squirrels Say goodbye to the whispered breath of the wind high in the trees.
The face of Tokai is changing and with that change this is what you will get:
A dramatic change in landscape ! Hectares of shadeless fynbos which is full of ticks and requires regular fires to regenerate. Think smoke and fire hazards and tick born diseases to yourself and your pets. No more trees. (Read about the importance of treed urban parks at http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0610/feature3/ Increased traffic through Tokai and Constantia as Tokai Manor House is turned into a high-volume visitor's centre hosting tourism, cultural events and concerts An added burden of congestion on Tokai and Orpen Roads as the traffic increases Increased commercialisation of the neighbourhood High level traffic through the residential area of Dennendal as people are crowded into the last remaining bit of plantation, the firebreak, that will be left on the edge of Dennendal until 2025 Expect incidents and accidents as dog walkers, walkers, horse-riders and mountain bikers are squeezed into that narrow section of shade on the edge of Dennendal Expect the profound reduction in property values - people choose to live in Tokai because of the trees and rural ambience The threat of development on the lower plantations when it is proved, finally, that the fynbos seedbed no longer exists. Already it is said that a BEE consortium are seeking to buy the land cleared on Orpen Road for townhouses.
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Crops and floods The new report from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) paints a stark picture of why measures to help African countries "climate-proof" their societies, economies and infrastructure are now widely seen as vital.Yields of major crops such as maize, millet and sorghum will fall, it concludes, while large portions of cities including Lagos, Dar-es-Salaam and Cape Town could disappear under rising seas.
Stark warning over climate change The European Union (EU) has adopted a target of preventing a rise in global average temperature of more than two degrees Celsius. But that, according to the report, might be too high, with two degrees perhaps enough to trigger melting of the Greenland ice sheet. This would have a major impact on sea levels globally, though it would take up to 1,000 years to see the full predicted rise of 7m. Above two degrees, says the report, the risks increase "very substantially", with "potentially large numbers of extinctions" and "major increases in hunger and water shortage risks... particularly in developing countries". |
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