In a bid to combat unwanted mountain fires after several veld fires in Kalk Bay, Simon’s Town and Glencairn Heights earlier this year, Take Back Our Mountains (TBOM), together with Working on Fire (WOF) and Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) honorary rangers, are taking action in a clean-up campaign.
TBOM founder Taahir Osman said it will involve regular clean-ups at specifically targeted areas to reduce mountain fires.
“We are targeting areas where street people live and hang out on the mountain.
“There is a also a known cave on Kalk Bay mountain where we have found people sleeping, and they are not only homeless people.”
On Saturday 2 March the team discovered electronic cigarettes, plastic, a gun holster, IDs and vehicle-licence disks during a mountain clean-up above Kalk Bay.
“Fires occur so quickly,” Osman pointed out, “and we’ve seen how challenging it was for firefighters during fire season.
“My aim is to collaborate with as many communities as possible to have enough hands to help. We will tackle known hot spots that are frequented by foreigners illegally, places where street people sleep and places where people smoke or hide out.”
The various kinds of rubbish found on the mountain are a clear indication that many items originate from residents’ homes or vehicles, Osman added.
“Things are coming from households and vehicles that have probably been broken into.
“We find items such as IDs and licence discs and have contacted those individuals who confirmed that they were either robbed or their cars broken into.”
Meanwhile, in a beach clean-up at Noordhoek Beach on Thursday 7 March, volunteers filled 25 bags of rubbish.
“The Marine Unit Table Mountain, Central Section Rangers, Working on Fire, Forever Young Elderly Club in Ocean View, Mutheeras Projects and Guardians of the Deep joined us for the beach clean-up.
“We loaded around 25 bags with a lot of plastic, bottle tops, lollipop sticks, straws and plastic bags.”
The team’s next stop is a clean-up of Robben Island.
“Robben Island is apparently very dirty and needs a clean-up, so we hope to tackle that next.”
SANParks honorary ranger Sally Sivewright, who joined the beach clean-up operation, said plastic had an enormous impact on the environment.
“Plastic and other single use materials have a huge impact on the environment leading to wildlife entanglements, starvation (stomachs filled with micro plastic) and release of toxins.”
She added that the team found mostly micro plastic, lollipop sticks, cigarette butts and styrofoam.
