If you’re wondering why your reeds have been quietly mouldering for the last month and the wandering Jew that you assiduously hauled out of your bay is putting down new roots on your verge, then read on…
The False Bay Ecology Park (FBEP) is about to receive proclaimed conservation status. Previously, only Zeekoevlei and Rondevlei Nature Reserves were officially protected areas. Now, 456ha is about to balloon to 2 000ha, with the addition of Strandfontein, the adjoining Slangetjiebos, Pelican Park and the Coastal Strip along Baden Powell Drive. The False Bay Ecology Park was the most visited city reserve in 2010. The Park is applying for Ramsar status, global recognition of wetlands of international significance. All good news, you’d think.
However, since Rondevlei was declared a Nature Reserve in 1952, its annual allocated management budget has been divided between newly declared reserves, like Zandvlei in 1977 and Zeekoevlei in 2000. Thus, while conserved land in the South Peninsula has expanded, the budget to manage that land has shrunk in direct proportion. The operational budget for the FBEP last year was R80 000.
Currently, for the 2 000ha FBEP, the City is funding five operational staff members in total: three site managers: Asieff Khan (FBEP), Tamaryn Allen (Rondevlei) and Josh Gericke (Zeekoevlei) with an additional two operational staff members at Rondevlei. Josh is being helped by a student, an intern and one volunteer, all of whom are working voluntarily. There is less staff now at Rondevlei than in 1992, despite the fact that the FBEP makes up 8% of the City’s nature reserves. Josh, the manager of Zeekoevlei, has no vehicle. The Pelican Park sector has a vehicle but no staff. The FBEP has two new vehicles that are running. Five others are so old that they are constantly in the shop and one vehicle has been scrapped.
Some R25 million is coming from the National Treasury for an upgrade of Zeekoevlei’s Eastern Shore but there is no budget for maintenance, despite the fact that 15 000 more residents will be occupying the Eastern Shore once the Pelican Park extension is completed. Building is due to start in September. The False Bay Ecology Park has brand new headquarters on the northern shore, on the site of the old Powerboat Club. However, there is not enough staff to fill the new offices. Nature conservation officials struggle to get new equipment, so that even if they do get new staff, it can take up to a year to get them their own computer.
Local nature conservation officials were shoring up their meagre annual budget with funding from the City’s skills development trust. Nature Conservation were using these funds to employ staff and were training them chainsaw usage, alien vegetation clearance and driving skills. However, this funding has gone elsewhere and the FBEP’s budget has shrunk from R750 000 to R200 000. From a staff complement of 43, the FBEP is now running on a skeleton staff of 15, including volunteers.
Despite such difficulties, your reeds will be collected. Nature Conservation has secured funding from the City to hire a grab truck and driver to pick up the reeds. Hopefully, the money for the necessary labour will be provided by the Friends of Zeekoevlei and Rondevlei. This should happen within the next two weeks.
What can you do?
Please write to your local councillor about this unacceptable state of affairs: shaun.august@capetown.gov.za
And, if you have not yet taken up or renewed your FoZR membership, please go onto the FoZR page on this website and do so. Every little bit of help counts!
Alternatively, phone the FoZR membership secretary, Caroline Bowley, at 021 706 9829 and she will help you sign up.
This important message was skillfully written by Laurianne, a dedicated and hard working Zeekoevlei community member.
Join this worthwhile organisation!
Could we not get this excellent article into the mainstream media- Cape Times/Argus- should be front page as this is a disgrace- One must question the shambolic way in which the City maintains and looks after this highly important nature reserve- There is just one full time person employed by the City for such an important area like Zeekoevlei yet many employed to look after the Green Point Park serving the Green point residents!
Example of Bottom Road
The city should be providing us with a full time ranger/worker to look arfer this area- Bottom Road has received no funding from the City of Cape Town, this despite its high importance.
Due to the costs involved in the continual maintenance and rehabilitation of the Bottom Road project (circa R150,000 per annum) some homeowners spend vast amounts of money on a monthly and in some cases even on a weekly basis in keeping this public space in a pristine condition that will hopefully serve generations to come.
The question is does the City take this seriously not. It would appear not from my perspective.
Millions get wasted elsewhere, yet when there is one successful project on the cape Flats not many stakeholders appear interested
The Bottom Rd Sanctuary for instance is probably the only well maintained wetland rehabilitation project on the Cape Flats but the sustainability of this and other projects will be called into question if the City does not provide the necessary funding.
Hi – I will investigate publishing the article, thank you for the comments – we will give air-time to the great work at Bottom Road as well, when following up on this issue with the City, Dee
Hi ‘Moondance’,
Thanks for the brilliant ariticle. There is just one fact I’d like to correct. The total land area under CCT Nature Conservation management is 15 750 Ha, which makes up 8% of the total area of the City. FBEP makes up almost 13% of this conserved area, which is over 1% of the total area of the City.
Regards to all,
Josh
James, you are quite right. Bottom road alone could probably absorb one full time worker. So could Van Blommenstein Park. If we still mowed grass at the greenfingers and zeep, we would need yet another worker full time. And we haven’t even begun to maintain the other 380 hectares of managed area, nor any of the infrastructure.
This is quite something to think about.
I have just had feedback from Cllr August, He has set up a meeting with the Director for Nat Cons and the reserve managers and other relevant parties for Monday 8th August where they will discuss this issue. He will then feedback to me and set up a meeting with all the players, council and civil(thats us folks) to thrash it out and find the solution… watch this space… so far he has impressed me, lets hope it continues.
The current state of the lake at Bottom Road is a disgrace.
Roads and Stormwater has a lot to answer for.
I spent 5 hours yesterday raking the dirt that had accumulated on the water’s edge just adjacent to my property. Another example of us doing the City’s work for them and then we are expected to pay full council rates!
I am thinking of going to the press given this state of affairs and the dirt just lying there- it really is an eyesore
There is still time for them to appoint a couple of workers with rakes who can clean up the area before the lake fills up- must we appoint people ourselves to do this work and then bill the city?
Re the protective fencing at Lotus- the other day I glanced over by the Fishermans Walk Park and saw that you had put up new defence mechanisms only to drive past the next day to see that they were all down- please fill me in on what’s happening there.
I went to the Sub Council meeting in Fish Hoek yesterday where brave Tom ‘the terminator’ Schwerdtfeger raised this issue so its also on the agenda there. He made a fine speech and a thinly veiled thread regarding litigation – LOL, I think they heard him clearly.
Time for waiting is now over
One of the critical issues with Zeekoevlei is how apathetic and accepting the general public are about the conditions.
People living around the lake have, for decades, ‘tolerated’ a situation that is a risk to the health of themselves and their animals, as well as devaluing their properties and their ‘quality of life’.
Allowing the situation to continue, without alerting anyone to it, is nothing less than a criminal act.
As with many similar situations, the CIty relies on “being seen to be doing something” as an excuse for not addressing the problem head-on. The public seems to swallow this hook line and the proverbial sinker – and is continually fobbed off by the announcment of (knee-jerk) additional studies, specialist investigations and the like, all of which were done years ago and do not merit repeating now. The problems have long been identified, the solutions equally so, yet some or other civil engineer gets to make a call on what gets done or does not get done. If the public took the trouble to get properly informed they would see through this smoke and mirrors game, as well as the “we don’t have any funds” rubbish.
Basically we all live around a very polluted stormwater detention pond whether you like that or notand should probably receive a 100% rebate on your rates for doing so – at least those on the shoreline.
The same prevails at Hartbeespoort Dam. The water quality has been horrific for decades, yet look at the level of investment and the number of people prepared to “recreate” on that water! Makes you wonder about the general intelligence level of South Africans.
In the US or the UK, a class-action suit against the City would have been raised years ago by the Zeekoevlei residents and the problem would long have been fixed. These are the views of Bill Harding and the views all Bottom Roiad residents concur with
The Residents of Bottom Road have spoken about the disgrace in which the City is treating this Vlei- what they are doing is bordering on criminality and it is insane- See page 12 of today’s Argus from the Residents of the Bottom Road Sanctuary- enough is enough!