Fynbos flair finds festive home
Press release: Friends of Tokai Park
Tokai’s ever-popular Chilled Market at The Range gave an immensely warm welcome to the Fynbos Festival this past Sunday. Eleven Fynbos vendors, including Fynbos nurseries, artists, gin and honey liqueur distillers as well as 14 Fynbos conservation organisations brought the flair of our indigenous vegetation to The Chilled Market, which provided a host of established food and drinks vendors.
Various conservation-centered activities, including a Fynbos restoration walk led by Dr Tony Rebelo of the Friends of Tokai Park, a City Nature Challenge bioblitz led by the City of Cape Town Biodiversity and Conservation Branch‘s Leighan Mossop and an indigenous edible plant demo by Veld and Sea marked a day of family, fun and Fynbos festivity.
A hugely popular raffle to support lowland Fynbos conservation promised amazing donated prizes and raised R3500 within hours. Prizewinners were treated to a 2-night stay for four people at Cape Point Nature Reserve (SANParks), a 3-course lunch and a Fynbos safari for two at Grootbos Private Nature Reserve, a Distillers & Union gin-making course valued at R600, a Veld and Sea voucher for R650, a Nada ceramics bowl, three bottles of DarlingHoney honey liqueur, four lowland Fynbos plants from FynbosLIFE, CapeNature gift bags and many great books from Struik and the Kirstenbosch Branch of the Botanical Society.
Those “lucking out” on the raffle added to the festive air by making flower crowns from cut flowers donated by Turning into Flowers and did just that – turned each other into flowers! A creative kids Funbos programme featured a ‘race to save the Fynbos’ by the Cape Town Environmental Education Trust (CTEET) as well as sunbird art creations, a flower crown workshop and Fynbos minibeastie creations by NatureHeart‘s Julia Budden.
If the aim of the Fynbos Festival was to grow appreciation for the beauty and value of Fynbos within the urban Cape Town community, it certainly succeeded. It also raised awareness of the threats faced by Fynbos and the many Fynbos conservation organisations that need urgent support.
According to FynbosLIFE’s Caitlin von Witt, “The Fynbos Festival connects the Cape Town Fynbos community through a new, fun social event. We want to showcase conservation organisations needing support, facilitate collaboration and creativity in the sector and recruit future Fynbos custodians.”
Tokai Park is a core conservation site that is home to remnants of two critically endangered Fynbos vegetation types: Cape Flats Sand Fynbos (less than 1% conserved) and Peninsula Granite Fynbos (less than 30% conserved). Tokai Park is also a “hot” hotspot within the greater biodiversity hotspot of Cape Town. With more than 450 native plant species in 600ha, it is a remarkable botanical site. Sadly, 22 plant species at the park are threatened with extinction.
Dr Alanna Rebelo believes that, despite Tokai Park’s innate value, the surrounding community remains divided over its fate.
“It’s up to our generation to decide whether we want to stop or slow the extinction of species and protect what biodiversity we have left,” says Dr Rebelo. “We all care about the deforestation of the Amazon and the destruction of Indonesian forest for palm oil, all happening far away, but we neglect the issues right here on our doorstep, things we can easily and must actively do something about.”
Both Friends of Tokai Park and FynbosLIFE will continue to promote the conservation of lowland Fynbos in Cape Town.
Acknowledgements
The inaugural Fynbos Festival was co-organised by Dr Alanna Rebelo of Friends of Tokai Park, Caitlin von Witt of FynbosLIFE, Megan Smith of SANBI and The Chilled Market, Tokai. All images courtesy Angela Gorman.
