‘Clearing Table Mountain one alien plant at a time’ — dedicated teams root out invasive flora

Pinus pinaster (cluster pine) in a field of pink watsonias on the mountain. (Photo: Anton Weers)

By Don Pinnock

2 Jan 2024

Every week, volunteer hackers are clearing the Cape Peninsula mountains of invasive alien plants so the rest of us can enjoy pristine fynbos and forest.

“Join the hack today. Jeep Track leading to the Secret Garden. Bring popper, loppers, gloves, pliers and garden fork if you can.”

Each week, calls like this appear on WhatsApp chats all over the Cape Peninsula.

Having nothing but pliers and unsure what a popper might be, I join a small team on the slopes of Table Mountain one Sunday afternoon. It turns out poppers are long yellow handles attached to jaws with which you lever out mostly Australian invader plants, of which there seem to be thousands.

Janet Small is using one to haul out Port Jackson, watched by her two patient dogs. She tosses each one over her shoulder and moves slowly uphill. “You have to get them early or they’re hard to get out,” she says.

Dawie Bosch, with his large friendly poodle, is addressing just such a problem. “See here,” he says, his leathery smile lines testament to years in the sun tracking down aliens, “poor alien clearing. They cut and didn’t poison properly, so the tree coppiced — sent outside shoots and kept deepening its roots. Now it’s really hard to get out.”

Port Jackson, Table Mountain Port Jackson infestation before clearing. (Photo: Supplied)

He digs around it with gloved hands to get a grip lower down, engages the popper and puts his weight on the yellow handle. Slowly the root yields and finally rips loose. Dawie holds it up triumphantly.

“This,” he pronounces, “gives me pleasure. We’re clearing Table Mountain one alien at a time. But they keep coming back, of course. Eighteen months after a botched clearing exercise by a Table Mountain National Park contractor, the area ended up with so much alien it took us six months to clear 20m².”

I look at the slope covered by Port Jackson treelets and wonder at the dedication of hackers who do this sort of thing voluntarily week after week, year after year. I want to know who they are and what motivates them because, as guardians of the Peninsula’s magical mountains, they’re unsung heroes.

Dawie Bosch, Table Mountain Volunteer hacker Dawie Bosch. (Photo: Don Pinnock)

A good person to ask, it turns out, is Sandy van Hoogstraten. “It’s an addiction,” she says. “The Cape Floral Kingdom is … priceless. Of the world’s six floral kingdoms, it’s the smallest, the most diverse and the only one contained in a single country.

“The problem is that only 1% of lowland fynbos is conserved. It’s being swallowed by farms and highways. Fynbos is vanishing. But the greatest threat to it now — lowland or mountain — is alien vegetation.

“It’s like climate change. For a long time, the problem grows slowly and nobody does enough about it. Then, by the time you realise it’s a serious problem, it’s too late. Hockey-stick graph. We’re pretty much there.”

According to Unesco, Cape fynbos represents less than 0.5% of the area in Africa but hosts a fifth (20%) of the continent’s flora. There are about 9,000 plant species, of which 1,736 are threatened and 3,087 are of conservation concern.

“You drive around the Western Cape and what do you see? Black wattle, pine, hakea, Port Jackson, wheat. Monoculture. It’s like … a green wasteland. But it’s not dead. Those trees are having babies, spreading.”

Hackers, she says, are into biodiversity conservation. They love fynbos. Invasive alien plants steal water, change soil structure, cause erosion and rip up the fabric that makes fynbos so special. When they burn they burn hotter, posing a fire hazard and damaging the natural ecosystem. But for Van Hoogstraten there’s an additional reason to hack: job creation.

Sugarbird leader Glen Mabekha (front left) with his team of full-time hackers who clear invasive alien vegetation. (Photo: Supplied)

“In 2010, I was complaining to my husband about the Port Jackson invasion on the slopes behind Camps Bay and he said: ‘Why don’t you do something about it?’ So I paid for one guy to start hacking it, then another guy, and soon I had a team of four. A few years later I started a second team at Chapman’s Peak.

“After a fire on Lion’s Head in 2020, the Port Jackson came up like hair on a dog’s back, so my team cleared it. Maya Naumann, who was hacking with a community group on Signal Hill, noticed their great work and contacted me. We teamed up and started the Sugarbird Project. Why Sugarbird? Because sugarbirds are endemic to fynbos. When the sugarbirds come back, you know the fynbos is thriving.”

They raised money to pay teams to work full-time and the project grew. Two years in, there were seven teams with 39 men in all, working in areas such as Signal Hill, Lion’s Head, Camps Bay, Devil’s Peak, Rhodes Memorial, Newlands Forest and Hout Bay.

“We have a good relationship with SANParks, who also hire contractors to do hacking under the Working for Water initiative.”

It is, she says, a labour of love. You see a section of Table Mountain that’s almost destroyed, you bring in a team to clear, and in a season that area is pristine and beautiful.

“People will pay a million rand for a picture on their wall. But you give six men a job for a month and you end up with something far more beautiful than a picture on the wall and something everyone can enjoy.”

Alien vegetation, Table Mountain It’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it. (Photo: Supplied)

The whole project is run on WhatsApp. Each morning a team takes a picture of themselves and the area they’re about to clear, then a picture of the cleared area at the end of the day.

“The teams are contracted, so we’re supporting entrepreneurship. We who organise it are volunteers. Donors love the model. Basically, it’s a transfer of 100% of the funds from the rich to the poor, with biodiversity conservation as the outcome. No overheads and the money goes directly to the community. The teams are fully supported, with training, uniforms and good equipment. Next year, we’re hoping to expand to 12 contracted teams with 60 men in all.”

Table Mountain National Park consists of about 25,000ha and SANParks has mapped it into about 1,000 units. Working for Water employs women to clear aliens in these units but their pay is low and, it has been alleged, their enthusiasm matches their pay packet.

Sugarbird pays well and, according to Van Hoogstraten, this builds enthusiasm, pride and interest in the work. SANParks reciprocates, providing herbicide, permits and planning to do the clearing work effectively.

Part of the Sugarbird system is to link paid hackers with local community hackers who are generally highly skilled and knowledgeable people who hack for the love of it.

There’s even a Helihack team that uses a chopper to get to inaccessible places. They’re dropped in, armed with chainsaws, and have removed thousands of pines from inaccessible places, risking their lives against invaders.

Helihackers are used to root out alien vegetation in inaccessible places. (Photo: Supplied)

Hackers include a wide range of people who hack as a labour of love. They give oversight, do follow-ups and offer encouragement to the paid guys for work well done.

One of those volunteers is Liz Sparg, who started the Rhodes Memorial/Newlands Forest hacking group in 2020. She noticed the pine trees growing in the forest and got a permit from SANParks to start clearing the area above the old zoo. She met Maya Naumann when volunteering at a hack on Lion’s Head and over time started working closely with the Sugarbird Project.

Another passionate volunteer is Anton Weers, who works in cloud computing and has been a hacker on and off for more than 20 years. When people want plants identified, he’s the man.

“They’re mostly Australian,” he says. “The climates are similar, but over there natural enemies inhibit their growth and reproduction. Here nothing stops them.

“Pines and gums were imported and grown in plantations for wood and paper production. Pine seeds are then blown high into the mountains, allowing them to spread rapidly. Gums were often used as firebreaks in addition to forestry.”

Cluster pine, Table Mountain Pinus pinaster (cluster pine) in a field of pink watsonias on the mountain. (Photo: Anton Weers)

Read more in Daily Maverick: Creecy launches R2.6-billion invasive species programme — experts say more funding needed in critical areas

Port Jackson and rooikrans were planted on the Cape Flats to stabilise the sand. Bottlebrush — also Australian — are used as ornamental plants but often escape captivity and find the local conditions favourable.

Seeds like Port Jackson lie dormant when under other cover, but when there’s a fire that cover goes and the heat and smoke stimulate germination. The germination cues that stimulate fynbos seeds to germinate also work on the Australian acacias.

“I guess it’s a hobby,” says Weers reflectively, “but also it’s so stimulating personally when you come back to an area and it’s clear of aliens and pristine again.”

Van Hoogstraten agrees. “After the [University of Cape Town] fire, Port Jackson took over and it was a horror show. But the Rhodes Memorial team cleared it and now there are thousands of silver trees interspersed with pink watsonias. I cannot tell you what that feels like — it’s transformation on another level! You just can’t put a price on saving the Cape Floral Kingdom.” DM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REeWvTRUpMk

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.

Categories:

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

South Africa