(BASED ON NEW EVENTS APPEARING IN THE PRESS)

THE FORESTS

1) Finally SANPARKS are straight-walk-talking, - BUT NOTHING IS CAST IN CEMENT. They keep saying their hands are tied!

Not true. Forestry could come back! SANPARKS should have talked straight with the public BEFORE they took control of the mountain,- in fact, - had they come in clean and honest like this at the front door of CAPE TOWN CITY,- laying down the law in such a dictatorial and Machiavellian style and said that this is "NON-NEGOTIABLE" or that’s a non-negotiable…..I wonder would they have got through the front door and got the park!

2) They are not the owners, they are then managers, paid for by the us,- The south African tax payers, not the botanical society and not offshore funders but they are employed by ......yes....."JOE-PUBLIC" of SA!

Everything is negotiable,- including their management concession.

3) Silvermine has, they say ,- been a massive botanical success but others would say its been a massive human and cultural failure. When Phakamani Buthelezi, the ceo of SAHRA talks about us coming from a divided past and sharing a united future, - I think that Silvermine, in the old days, epitomised a blending and wonderful mixing of cultures, - braaing, picnicking, swimming and generally getting along. It was a good place to go to! Everyone enjoyed it from all walks of life, - from the very rich to the very poor. We were all at ground zero in a phenomenally peaceful and beautiful place to enjoy the out doors. I often used to think of this and what a wonderful place it was. Unlike, say a cinema or shopping centre it was a place of where everyone could enjoy a world class environment of sun, shade, beautiful swimming in weird black water, mountain, little nooks all over the place as well where people could get a sense of privacy to….and shaded by huge old trees!

Many spoke how gut wrenching it was to arrive one day and see it gone!

SILVERMINE IN A NUT SHELL:- The botanists & SANPARKS had a celebration and ordinary "Joe-Public" had a funeral.

3) Recovery time of indigenous forest and the mention of Orange Kloof.

You are not allowed in orange Kloof without applying for a permit. There will be a luxury accommodation there in orange Kloof for overseas visitors doing the trail. Indigenous forest will never spread out of the ravines to give a shade cover ANYWHERE NEAR to the shade cover that is there now provided for by foreigner species. The time for indigenous forest to recover will not be in our lives. 20- 30- 40 years from now ? Who knows what the urban environment will be around the mountain then & the need for shade will be immensely higher than it is now. The impact of traffic through the indigenous forests huddled in the ravines will require Catwalks to prevent erosion. People will be squeezed into these little picket fenced catwalks. your feet wont even touch the ground from beginning to end! Many places along the garden route have these very necessary walkways to prevent erosion where there is high volume traffic. The forest floor of pine is MIRACULOUSLY resilient to massive traffic. ITS A GIFT IN THE HAND for an URBAN PARK!

How can they not imagine Urban sprawl in Cape Town and the needs of people...not in a 100 years BUT 20 years!

FYNBOS will NOT SATISFY THIS NEED for escape from a baking sun or screaming south Easter,- it never has and it never will!

If you can wait for 40-100 years ......then still Indigenous forest will not be big enough either to meet this need! Indigenous forest cannot spread over the same area as the alien species.

4) Who defines the value of how we measure recreation or habitat in cape town,- What go's or what stays ? The botanical society or civil society ? International organisations or local natives ? Its very difficult and there is a head on clash of values. What's more important a threatened species or the lives of so called Joe public who might be living on sand dunes and in a shade less world which is almost all of the Cape Town already and certainly 99% of the cape flats!

To some the value of a weekend might be a picnic or perhaps a walk with their dogs in a shaded forest and not marvelling at a rare Fynbos species.

Give and take! (2% forest verse 98% Fynbos) Is this fair ?

 For many the anger is now beyond boiling point!

If certain areas are Biologically "NON-NEGOTIABLE" as SANPARKS made it clear in today's press release,- then could other areas be given up for forest shade and a people's park! Could forestry be invited back in to start up in other areas ? And also,- what new areas will suddenly have threatened endemic species next? With the character of Fynbos, its not hard to find a new species that might suddenly appear in 5 years time, - say in the camps bay glen or deer park r the arboretum.....and then suddenly its got to be saved at absolutely ANY COST!

This is how we will loose all the foreigner species off the mountain!

What we will see…...…. First we will see an article by some-one marvelling about a rare and new species found, say, in the CAMPOS BAY GLEN…….And then the commotion will start up…....And that’s how, eventually, all the alien forests will be removed off the mountain…And table mountain will be returned back to its "natural integrity" and "former glory"

The issue here is not just about biology and ecology but a broad view of a Central park for the people of Cape Town and urban escape into shade and cool forests of our cape!

We are still a relatively small city. One needs to think of what a real open urban park means to a city. New York would be an unlovable urban cement without central park and the same with London. London Parks from Richmond to Hyde park are an infinitely unquantifiable asset to the people! They are not game reserves but peoples parks for the city! These parks literally are not just the lungs of the city's but the soul for many of the citizens..

5) Different strokes for different folks,- Some think the Fynbos Biome is the best in the world, some prefer the rather new Biome of shopping malls, while others prefer tropical forest and others prefer coral reefs….We are not all obsessed with Fynbos and no matter what .....many prefer forests and others still beaches and still others shopping at canal walk is the perfect day in the ideal new world 21st century "Biome".

The change in the Cape Town without Tokai and Newlands and Cecilia is so drastic I cannot conceive of it! To drive over Constantia nek one day and see all the blue gums gone and the forests removed or shrunk into tiny little pockets will be an immeasurable change in the very feel of those neighbourhoods.

SAHRA should have stepped in in now,- they haven't,-Why ?

Almost all of our decent big trees here in the cape are foreigner species….from the Asian figs on glen Garif in Seapoint to the pine and the oak and the blue gums from here to Stellenbosch and Jonkershoek and back!

Forestry should come back to the western cape.

The exit strategy from many angles was a very bad move….affecting the recreational use to the wood needs of future south Africa.

The anti- Alien campaign has defaced the value and blessings of foreigner species wood brought here in the first place to satisfy a need that slow growing indigenous could not.

Thank g-d that we don’t live in a Tundra Biome!