Parkscape

Voluntary advocacy NPO, ensuring safety, and protecting the urban forest, cultural landscapes and biodiversity in the buffer zones and wildland-urban interfaces of TMNP. Our vision is driven by the increasing incidence of crime and fire in the ever-reducing buffer zones of Table Mountain National Park, which pose a serious threat to the urban edge. The devastating fires of March 2015 (which destroyed several homes), and the Devil's Peak fire of 2021 (which caused extensive heritage damage) along with numerous smaller fires and several brutal murders, including the rape and murder of a 16 year old girl in the fynbos of Lower Tokai in 2016, together with numerous ongoing incidents of crime, highlight a critical issue of safety in the 221sq km Park. It is a problem which requires collective and community driven action. Per the Tokai-Cecilia Management Framework, negotiated between the public and SANParks in 2007, Parkscape is also acutely aware of the need for safe and shaded urban greenspace within the buffer zones, which can deliver all the benefits of green infrastructure - ecosystem services - particularly as regards physical and mental health and well-being, and some aspects of climate change mitigation - particularly as regards reducing urban temperatures, while maintaining the treed aesthetic of the cultural landscape of the Constantia-Tokai valley. TMNP is uniquely situated within an urban setting and is, as such, an urban national park and a people’s park. Unlike rural parks such as Kruger National Park, TMNP must meet a broad range of needs from conservation of the Cape Floral Kingdom and Afrotemperate forests to local user needs, particularly the needs of communities that need urban greenspace. Management strategies for the Park must therefore be specific to meeting the demands of an increasingly densified and diverse city environment, from conservation to urban greening and urban forestry for human health and well-being, climate change and sustainable city goals per the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Unfortunately local users regularly run into issues that hinge primarily around safety with respect to crime and fire, access and creeping fees, and failure to manage and maintain infrastructure and biodiversity within the Park. Increasingly locals feel excluded from “their mountain”, with the failure to sufficiently reinvest in the Park exacerbating the situation. The focus on fynbos biodiversity to the exclusion of other biodiversity - including urban forests - and the failure to effectively manage the shrinking buffer zones which lie adjacent to urban edges add to various growing problems. In light of ongoing crime in the Park, together with increased incidents of fire throughout the Park - and an historical reluctance of the SANParks to engage with the public – the vision was born to refocus activity in the buffer zones (per the original foundation documents which underpin the Park’s formation) for the people of Cape Town, starting with Lower Tokai as a potential model. Parkscape’s vision is to create safe, biodiverse and shaded (afforestation of Afrotemperate forest and non invasive exotic species) urban greenspace for all within the buffer zones of the Park, while also providing opportunities for social upliftment, community development, cultural and environmental education – all of which will ultimately serve to address safety concerns.