As incidents of bark stripping and bark ringing of street trees in the southern suburbs continue to rise, so does the brazenness of those responsible, with some culprits even engaging in the illegal practice in broad daylight.
Trees on City of Cape Town land, including all street verges, public places and parks, are protected and may not be pruned or removed without written permission from the City’s Recreation and Parks Department.
This prohibition is contained in three City documents, namely the Public Parks By-law, the Tree Management Policy and the By-law relating to Streets, Public Places and the Prevention of Noise Nuisances.
These municipal by-laws also prohibit damage to trees growing on a public road or public place.
Despite it being illegal, local arborist Francois Krige says the stripping of trees on pavements has been going on for the past 20 years at least.
“And in the past few weeks even more so. I am contacted about this issue almost daily now. Trees on pavements but also trees in private gardens that don’t have good perimeter security. The worst affected areas are Newlands, Claremont, Constantia and Bishopscourt, basically where our best trees are growing,” says Krige.
TreeKeepers, a citizens’ organisation that works to conserve trees in the urban forest, has noted a sharp increase in the stripping of trees in suburbs as well.
Clare Burgess, the chair of TreeKeepers, says in the past three weeks, there has been a spate of bark stripping from street trees in Newlands, including a particularly “nasty incident” in the heart of Newlands Village. She shares that a bark stripper was seen hacking off about 1m² of bark from one side of the trunk of a very large, mature camphor tree.
“A resident who lives in the street, about 20m from the tree, was home and saw him but was too scared to approach and ask him to stop since he is a particularly scary character and carries a large panga. She called the local security company but he had already left with his bag of goods before they turned up,” she says.
She explains that “bark stripping” is the removal of thin strips of bark whereas “bark ringing” is when the entire layer of bark is removed from the full circumference of the tree. The “harvested” bark is dried and pulverised for medicinal or cultural reasons.
While trees affected are sporadic, mainly Camphor, Fever and Norfolk Pine trees are being targeted. This is in addition to the indigenous trees which have been badly affected in Table Mountain National Park.
Burgess says the long-term impact of indiscriminate bark stripping is that the urban forest will lose these trees from the green canopy, significantly impacting the ecological services that the urban forest provides to Cape Town.
According to Krige, very little can be done once a tree is ringbarked.
“There are treatments, but their effectiveness depends on the species and the extent of the damage. Ringbarking disrupts and severs the vascular system and kills the tree.”
Krige says he and fellow arborists have been trying various treatments after the fact, but he adds that prevention is key.
“One of the best ways to prevent this damage from occurring is to paint the bark on the accessible parts of the trunk with water-based PVA paint. This contaminates the product and discourages the harvesters.”
Krige, who is also the chair of Friends of the Arderne Gardens (Fotag), says they started painting affected trees at the Arderne many years ago.
“Unfortunately, we neglected to paint one of the younger camphors that has now been stripped. A Norfolk Pine on the pavement outside the garden was partially stripped too. This tree is part of a collection of the Araucariaceae family, the family of Southern Hemisphere conifers. The Arderne is one of the best collections of this family in the world.”
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When it comes to trees growing on City land, Krige claims the City has been slow to act to safeguard their valuable resource. He says what complicates matters further, is that the same municipal by-laws which prohibit damage to trees growing on a public road or place also forbids them from being marked or painted without the City’s permission. Krige says although amendments to these by-laws are in the pipeline, the process is slow.
In the meantime, he says the Krige Tree Services and the Fotag teams have begun to apply paint to vulnerable as well as partially stripped trees. The most recent being two trees outside the Rycroft gate at Kirstenbosh National Botanical Garden and fever trees in Bowwood Road in Claremont.
He says, Krige Trees, together with TreeKeepers, is taking this project further to include vulnerable trees across the southern suburbs. He asks for the public to get involved by pointing out trees in their neighbourhood that need painting.
“The City is considering supplying us with paint, but this process could take some time. If someone will assist with paint or a contribution towards the labour, I’d be grateful, but, in the meantime, I will pay for labour to paint trees,” he says.
Burgess says TreeKeepers is trying to play an active role in preventing the loss of more trees from the urban forest and will administrate any funds raised by the public for buying paint to prevent further damage to trees. As a registered non-profit organisation, TreeKeepers can issue Section 18A tax certificates which allow donors to claim both an input tax deduction for VAT and a tax deduction for Income tax purposes.
“The incident in Newlands Village was in broad daylight. The guys doing the bark stripping are incredibly arrogant to do this as they must know that this is vandalism of the highest order and that public trees cannot be treated this way,” Burgess says.
- Donations in support of the project can be made to Treekeepers-Cape Town: Standard Bank, Claremont. Account No: 076299082 Branch Code: 025109.
- To share the location of trees that need painting, call 021 447 1369 or email krigetrees@gmail.com
