The "sustainable development" myth
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Dissecting a botanical oxymoron at Tokai Park
By Tony Rebelo
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Brundtland Report, WCED 1987: 43
An essay by Du Pisani in 2006 states: “However, as a contemporary buzzword ‘sustainable development’ has become rather overworked. We often use it without thinking of its real meaning and implications”.
The whole point of Table Mountain National Park is to stop development because we need sustainability. The Table Mountain National Park was inscribed in 2004 as part of the UNESCO serial Cape Floral Region Protected Areas World Heritage Site. Wrecking the Earth first and then turning to National Parks “for sustainability” is a ridiculous notion.
The whole point of National Parks is to allow Caracal, Klipspringer, Baboons and other animals and plants to survive – even alongside the city. Sustainability is not eliminating baboons so that people can walk their dogs and picnic in the Arboretum.
The whole point of a National Park – the entirety of its legislation and its reason for existing – is to project pristine biodiversity. It is the highest level of legislative protection that an ecosystem can receive. The boundary of a National Park separates the pristine area from the development beyond it.
Table Mountain National Park, an “urban park”
It is correct that Table Mountain National Park is a Park in the city. It is also correct that there is an interface – we have Die Hel, Diep River and Klaasenbosch (just on the edge of Cecilia) and 18 km of Constantia Greenbelt connecting the pristine Park with the Cape Flats, as well as the rivers and Source to Sea area extending to the nature reserves at Zeekoevlei, Sandvlei and beyond.
There is lots of scope for buffer or interface areas – they do not need to be “developed” at the expense of the natural areas – especially our Critically Endangered Peninsula Granite Fynbos (only 30% conserved) and Cape Flats Sand Fynbos (only 1% conserved). Also, there are countless city parks, shaded landscapes and suburban gardens.
The National Parks Act does not allow SANParks to manage modified landscapes – especially not when its mandate is to conserve representative threatened ecosystems and species.
Section 4 states: “The object of the constitution of a park is the establishment, preservation and study therein of wild animal, marine and plant life and objects of geological, archaeological, historical, ethnological, oceanographic, educational and other scientific interest and objects relating to the said life or the first-mentioned objects or to events in or the history of the park in such a manner that the area which constitutes the park shall, as far as may be and for the benefit and enjoyment of visitors, be retained in its natural state.“
Even our National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act 57 of 2003 (NEM: PAA), at Section 20, clearly states that spiritual, scientific, educational, recreational and tourism opportunities must be “environmentally compatible“.
We cannot continue to remain ignorant of Cape Town’s highly threatened ecosystems, the species threatened with extinction or the international conventions that have Table Mountain National Park at their core.
In the management plan for Table Mountain National Park, one of the objectives is to: “manage the Table Mountain National Park component of the Cape Floral Region Protected Areas World Heritage Site in collaboration with the partner authorities and in accordance with international and national standards and conventions.“
South Africa became a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity in November 1995, following the establishment of the country’s first democratically elected government in 1994. On 30 January 2009, the then Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism proclaimed by Government Notice (GN 31832) the Cape Floristic Region as a World Heritage Site in terms of the World Heritage Convention Act (No 49 of 1999).
We cannot totally ignore all of this for illusory “sustainable developments”.
The door on sustainable options closed when Cape Town ranked second behind Hawaii for threatened species. We have more species of plant threatened with extinction than any other city on earth. On what grounds can one suggest that we ignore all this to compromise these endemic ecosystems and species, or our local, national and international obligations?
Throwing global change into the mix
Did you know that Protea neriifolia does occur in dense monospecific stands on Table Mountain, but only as an alien invasive species? Introduced by forestry to rehabilitate the areas they were “restoring” when the plantations in the City Bowl were decommissioned in the 1960s, they hybridised with the indigenous species that should occur on the mountain, forming swarms of Frankenflora.
Our climate is changing, but we don’t know what precisely will happen to wind, rainfall, aquifers and even, to a degree, temperature [no pun intended]. Temperatures will rise, of course, especially in the short term (50-100 years), but how much and where? Nor do we know how the incidence and patterns of fire weather, flooding, evapotranspiration, frost and air pollution – which influence where species can grow – will be affected.
But ignorance is no excuse to give up. “The first step of intelligent tinkering is to keep all the pieces” and manage the system as a whole, rather than meddle with trying to favour “special” species (throw away parts that we don’t understand) or try and second guess their trajectories.
What evidence is there of the value of conservation and restoration?
Turning our attention to areas of particular biodiversity importance, did you know that there are more indigenous plant species (defined as occurring at that place naturally) growing at lower Tokai Park than there are in all the Afromontane forests from Newlands to the Drakensberg? Fynbos is extremely special.
I am not decrying the significance of Afromontane Forest. Although it pales to insignificance compared to Fynbos, it is still the richest temperate forest flora in the world. That is no mean achievement – but then we expect nothing less at the Cape. Even the poor cousin can be a king in this kingdom of floral treasures.
SANParks has been doing prescribed restoration burns at lower Tokai in the correct season and on schedule for almost 15 years now, and the communities and wetlands are beginning to emerge spontaneously as the water tables and ecosystems equilibrate.
The local extinct in the wild and threatened species are also doing well at Tokai Park. So the species are already there (including many of which are threatened) and others are coming back – including, for example, a Monkey Beetle only recorded previously from the type specimen collected in the 1940s. Also, a new species of Sedge, the only viable population of which is at Tokai Park, was described only last year.
All these species need is sufficient space to maintain their minimum viable populations. SANParks is already doing a superb job at managing these self-restored ecosystems and will continue to do so for as long as there is sufficient room.
The value of “wilderness” compared to a garden
We don’t need a garden approach: there is not anyone alive anyway who can “garden” an ecosystem containing over 500 indigenous (and 100 alien) plant species over a few hundred hectares.
We don’t even know how many of the species’ seeds are stored, and Kirstenbosch and Kew cannot get dozens of them to even germinate. Fortunately, they appear tuned to the changing environment and come up on their own after fire.
Of course, there will be challenges: but by far the biggest challenge will be conserving an ecosystem large enough to be self-sustainable. If that is not possible at lower Tokai Park, then SANParks has no role there: the land should be given over to low-cost housing or some other pressing social need.
The most crucial aspect of Tokai Park is not its biodiversity; that is already there, or its ecosystem services (climate regulation, soil retention, water purification and regulation, and many others) – SANParks already has these in hand. What is crucial is the area left for species to ensure that they can maintain viable and sustainable populations in functioning ecosystems.
It is all about the area.
Nothing is more critical in lower Tokai than our final area of Cape Flats Sand Fynbos being conserved as a viable ecosystem.
And what of the animals?
Fortunately for animals, Tokai is connected to the rest of Table Mountain National Park so they don’t need huge areas: the critical factor at Tokai is the area available to plant populations – we still need every square millimetre. We are already at the limit and cannot afford to sacrifice even a few hectares.
This need for land is not incompatible with environmentally friendly recreational opportunities. The system is already integrated into the diverse recreational needs of local communities. Tokai Park is connected directly to the Constantia Green Belt – you can cycle, walk, hike and even horse ride from Tokai, across a mix of unbroken green belt and natural areas, directly to Kloof Nek or Sun Valley.
Unsustainable development and environmentally unfriendly recreational activities
Those who live in Cape Town have an advantage over most global citizens in that they live in such a rich ecosystem. There are, right now, more threatened plant species growing in lower Tokai Park (excluding a handful of critically threatened species – the living dead) than in the whole of Gauteng province!
This is not Mopane Woodland. Nor is it a highly productive ecosystem supporting millions of people. It comprises a couple of hundred hectares supporting some of the last remaining populations of several dozen species whose habitat on Earth has been all but completely destroyed by the very people now calling for more “sustainable development”.
How many more species in Cape Town must go extinct before people stop calling for a “sustainable development” that stopped being sustainable more than 20 years ago when Cape Flats Sand and Peninsula Granite Fynbos were squeezed from Near Threatened to Vulnerable to Endangered to Critically Endangered?
When will Capetonians be happy? When these species are extinct? Is that our definition of sustainable?
Or is it that, for as long as there is something to carve up for recreation, to harvest, to take, to poach – then it is suitable for sustainable use?
At some stage a line has to be drawn. And, for Cape Flats Sand Fynbos, that line should have been drawn and enforced 20 years ago – before Cape Town became the extinction capital of the world.
Personal reflections
I am biased towards biodiversity and conservation in Table Mountain National Park. I hope to be able to prevent the Judases giving away our last viable ecosystems for a few pieces of silver or, at the very least, record for prosperity who they were.
I will not allow Cape Town to plumb new lows by being able to claim to have more extinct species than any other country in the world. This is about saving biodiversity, not destroying it.
As for people and sustainability, people can speak for themselves. Biologists should be speaking on behalf of the flora, fauna and fungi – protecting them rather than selling them off as slaves, commodities or services.
Humans stopped being sustainable a long time ago. We are living off capital that should be our investment sustaining humanity. For as long as our footprint remains 1.7 Earths (or anywhere between 2.3 and 5 Earths were we all to “level up” and live like the Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Europeans or Americans), we have no sustainable future. The most we can hope for is some damage control.
Time will tell. However, if we don’t protect our key species now, the future is irrelevant: there will be nothing left to see. Looked at another way, our future is optional. As we destroy our options now, so we seal our fate.
