Our Vision
Biodiversity • Community • Heritage • Safety
The restoration and conservation of biodiversity is inclusive, not exclusive, and is entirely compatible with our heritage and recreational activities.
Our goal is to conserve our natural plant and animal life at Tokai Park while promoting the park as a recreational gateway to our greatest natural asset and internationally-renowned World Heritage Site, Table Mountain National Park.
We envisage a park reflecting the symbiotic relationship between the plants and animals that call Tokai Park home and members of the diverse community that use it for many and varied types of recreation, including walking, running, cycling, dog-walking and/or horse riding.
Tokai Park is to Cape Town what the Amazon is to the world – a biodiverse, species-rich ecosystem threatened by past practices, future development and ever-present invasive alien plants.
We foresee a time when business and commercial activity will no longer pose an existential threat to our natural world but will meld with and contribute to the sustainable infrastructure and life of the park.
The restoration and conservation of biodiversity is inclusive, not exclusive, and is entirely compatible with our heritage and recreational activities. In a world subject to the non-linear positive feedback loops of increasingly evident anthropogenic climate disruption, all species have inherent value and extinction is unacceptable.
Conservation is essential. To not restore and conserve an existing and viable ecosystem to health would make us complicit in the ongoing global destruction of the biosphere on which all life depends.
Home to one of the last remnants of Fynbos on Cape Town’s lowlands, Tokai Park’s location enables us to connect the wildlife of the mountain to that of the flats, creating a viable biodiversity corridor bringing nature to the city rather than the city to nature. By conserving Tokai Park in a manner benefitting all, we will contribute significantly to conserving the natural splendour, cultural heritage, recreational needs and safety of all within the greater Cape Town Metropole.
We invite you to share our vision, a realisable and sustainable future appreciated, enjoyed and viewed by generations to come.
Tokai is home to four vegetation types: Cape Flats Sand Fynbos and Peninsula Granite Fynbos, Peninsula Sandstone Fynbos and some patches of Afrotemperate Forest. Cape Flats Sand Fynbos and Peninsula Granite Fynbos are both critically endangered and their conservation and restoration are therefore Friends of Tokai Park’s top priorities.
Planning a Park for All – Together
Friends of Tokai Park charts a clear, simple and practicable path to a sustainable future for our critically endangered biodiversity.
A shaded perimeter walk was planted by the SANParks Honorary Rangers and Friends of Tokai Park. However, water restrictions precipitated by drought precluded the trees being watered and they failed to establish themselves – a sure sign of their species being unsuited to the area.
The perimeter walk needs attention and additional trees should be added to it.
Although shaded walks already exist in the Tokai Arboretum and in the ten neighbouring green-belt, a shaded river ramble would be beneficial to the Keyser River Green Belt.
The Fynbos at Tokai Park must undergo regular prescribed burns (approximately every 10 years) in a manner promoting Fynbos restoration while keeping local neighbourhoods safe and respecting the rights of adjacent landowners to fire safety. This precludes trees being planted within the Fynbos.
A shaded river ramble and the area around the Tokai Pony Club planted with near-native indigenous trees will replace the impractical ecological model of “transition planting”.
We stress that no trees are indigenous to the Cape Flats. However, we do have trees indigenous to the region, i.e. in nearby Afromontane Forest patches and riparian zones. Substantial investment, including community buy-in and commitment as well as finance, is needed for these trees to establish themselves on the sandy flats.
Tokai Manor Precinct
FoTP’s vision for the Tokai Manor Precinct and Arboretum, the development of which is currently out for tender, is as follows:- The Old Prison The old dining hall should be converted into a cultural centre for the arts (exhibitions, plays, concerts, community events, etc.)
- Tokai Manor House This should be retained, restored and maintained as an historic building and used, perhaps, as a restaurant as it has adequate a kitchen, adequate plumbing and ablution facilities
- The Old Paddocks The Old Paddocks afford further opportunities to locate a restaurant
- The Garden requires landscaping and maintenance
- A baboon-proof fence enclosing the complex is proposed
- Lister’s Tea Room The building which, although run down, is structurally sound, should be converted to a museum for the Arboretum (it is not suited to serving food, and has poor plumbing, kitchen and ablution facilities as well as being located some distance from the Tokai Park Picnic Site parking area)
