Surrounded by the evergreen beauty of Groot Constantia’s forests, its custodians, the Friends of Constantia Valley Greenbelts (FoCVGB), gathered at their Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Tuesday 17 October as an important reminder of the call to protect the Peninsula’s greenbelts at all costs.
The main speaker and chair of FoCVGB Colin Walker started off by emphasising the City’s prestigious high-ranking performance on numerous Top 10 lists of best cities in the world, best beaches and best biodiversity.
However, he mainly focussed on areas in which the Friends, City and all its inhabitants should aim to improve its natural heritage to a point of sustainability for generations to come.
“Since Covid, the City is experiencing at least five times higher visitation and occupation than before. Mainly due to the freedoms people regained after being locked-down, who now wish to get out more, exercise and generally improve their well-being, which is also partly due to the liveability we enjoy, here.”
This means the Constantia Greenbelts are being more frequented as a result of the social increase in demographics across the spectrum of Cape Town.
“This is not business as usual anymore. The most concerning is that, despite our world class natural resources, we perform low on sustainability figures. We have a lot of work to be done to protect the greenbelts and ensure its sustainability,” Walker warned.
The main aims and objectives called upon the Friends are to ensure the preservation, conservation and recreational usage of the greenbelts, by:
- Operating with the agreement of the managing authority namely the City;
- Fostering and promoting public awareness of, and respect for the greenbelts;
- Informing the public about the diversity of flora and fauna which may be found in the CVGBs;
- Most importantly, protecting, through lawful means and wherever possible, the CVGBs against actual or threatened degradation due to any cause, and particularly, the erosion of its boundaries;
- And participating in formal planning activities of the City, Provincial and National authorities where proposed or approved development may impact on the CVGBs or its surrounds.
Walker highlighted that, to him, the purpose of being part of the FoCVGBs is not about “creating gardens, no… but creating environment that can sustain itself”.
He continued to point out to his fellow members that the greenbelts are suffering due to insufficient maintenance of grass cutting and vegetation; invasive specie removal and follow-up maintenance to sustain work that had already been done in previous projects.
“If you spent thousands of rands to clear a site overgrown with vegetation and tangling species, but never return to fulfil maintenance of these clean-ups – within a few months that progress will be lost due to total regrowth. Sometimes, the vegetation on these sites grow back even tougher; which means it was all a waste of money in services paid,” Walker maintained.
He did, however, provide feedback on the mowing of the City’s grassy landscapes seeing much improvement compared to previous years.
“Alas, now that a lot of such services are being subcontracted by the City, it makes the associated service delivery vulnerable to many battles (with regards to tender applications, financial affairs and legalities) that holds back a lot of work.
“The problem with appointing new contractors is the learning curves the ecologically sensitive areas require.
“Each time there is a new contractor, their improved and quicker working is stagnated by all the learning curves these spaces has in store.”
Walker believes that the Constantia Valley’s greenbelts require a lot more dedication, work and, above all, follow-up maintenance to be sustainably grown and protected for future generations.
“But if the City, its contractors and Friends of all the valley’s greenbelts come together in concerted efforts – we ought to build great progress and upkeep going forward.”
The public is invited to join efforts by the FoCVGB in sustainably maintaining the natural wonders of Cape Town’s vulnerable ecosystems and greenbelts. Like and follow Friends of the Constantia Valley Greenbelts’ Facebook page to know about and join their latest projects in protecting your scenic surrounds.
