Our Team
Meet our committee
Friends of Tokai Park (FoTP) is made up of an eight-member steering committee of scientists and laypeople serving 1 450-plus other members who organise, manage or take part in our regular events.
Dr Tony Rebelo
Chairperson
The 2019 Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) Regional Award winner for outstanding individuals, organisations or projects in the field of restoration, Tony is one of South Africa’s great biodiversity scientists. Currently based at the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), he has coauthored books on Pollination Ecology, Proteas and the vegetation types of South Africa, and has published numerous scientific publications.
His special interests are conservation planning, Protea ecology and encouraging amateurs to become involved in scientific research. He has championed user-friendly field guides, the Protea Atlas Project, and the iNaturalist citizen science programme in southern Africa – aimed at documenting local biodiversity.
Follow Tony on iNaturalist.
Jay Cowen
Treasurer
Jay grew up in eastern Zimbabwe, where he spent every spare moment roaming the beautiful miombo woodland-clad hills alongside the Mozambican border. At the time, these hills were home to a wealth of wildlife ranging from large game to an abundance of colourful butterflies.
After moving to Cape Town, Jay’s love of the outdoors translated easily into roaming our local mountains and, before long, he became involved with efforts to combat the invasive alien vegetation threatening our unique Fynbos kingdom. Since 1981, Jay has played a leading, hands-on role with several volunteer groups, including the Friends of Silvermine, Friends of Tokai Park and the Mountain Club of South Africa.
Jay has worked in the financial industry for more than 50 years and, as FoTP’s treasurer, constantly proves himself an invaluable asset.
Leila Mitrani
Secretary
Leila, our Secretary, was born and raised in Cape Town, has a Masters in Botany from UCT, spent three years in public health research and currently works in property management and GIS consulting.
She is a Tokai resident who believes in looking after what’s on our doorstep and is passionate about ecosystem restoration and urban conservation. She remembers visiting Tokai as a child and, all of 10 years ago, monitoring biocontrol as a SANBI intern.
Leila is often found running the perimeter of Lower Tokai with her dogs or pulling up pesky golden wattles. Being an amateur photographer armed with only a phone camera does not stop her from getting her knees dirty to photograph a flower from the right angle.
Dr Alanna Rebelo
Ex officio
An ecohydrologist with a passion for conservation, Alanna is in charge of fund raising and marketing. She is passionate about protecting what remains of our critically endangered Cape Flats Sand Fynbos and Peninsula Granite Fynbos.
Alanna is a senior researcher at the Agricultural Research Council. Her main research focus is on water resource management, specifically mapping biological invasions and understanding their impact on water use.
You can follow Alanna on ResearchGate.
Dr Berta van Rooyen
Ex officio
Following her 2015 doctoral study, Die geskiedenis van Tokai Park, 1792-1910, as rekord vir ‘n bewaringstrategie, Berta van Rooyen has dedicated her energy to convening our Heritage subcommittee, responsible for clearing invasive species around the Manor House (with emphasis on The Arboretum) and research into the history of Tokai-Cecilia.
Berta holds that history is poorly researched during cultural heritage assessments, resulting in questionable outcomes. Her ongoing research focuses on cultural informants, place names, pre- and post-colonial land ownership and use, and the importance of fynbos as a cultural commodity.
Where necessary, Berta advises SANParks on the history of the Tokai-Cecilia environment.
Jeremy Gilmore
Committee Member – Youth
A Grade 11 student at the Constantia Waldorf School, Jeremy is an accomplished citizen scientist deeply embedded and extremely active in the FoTP community. A committed ecologist in his own right, he is a regular contributor to our social-media pages.
Having grown up on the border of Cape Town’s Deep South, Jeremy evinces a “source-to-sea” passion for biodiversity in all its forms throughout our Fynbos Biome and is a keen participant in all FoTP field projects. A dedicated hacker, he epitomises the sense of civic responsibility required to mitigate damage caused to our fragile Fynbos ecosystem by invasive aliens. A hardcore fieldworker and contributor to iNaturalist, Jeremy has more than 3 000 observations to his name.
You can follow Jeremy on iNaturalist.
Vard Aman
Committee Member
Vard is a qualified nature conservationist and experienced herpetologist who works for Cape Snake Conservation and the City of Cape Town Biodiversity Management Branch. He is passionate about long, cold and sinewy creatures that make most people go “#$%&!”
After working with these animals for a long time, Vard finds the above response grossly unfair and almost always inappropriate. He therefore shares his experiences of these species, helps people overcome their fear of them and rehabilitates their reputations so that they more accurately reflect their contributions to our broader ecology.
Vard grew up in Cape Town and spent much of his time on the mountains and in the wild. As a child, he learned to appreciate the amazing biodiversity surrounding him and he attaches great value to his favoured animals’ conservation.
Mike Golby
Committee Member
Mike tackles misinformation about controversial issues such as biodiversity conservation at Tokai, baboon matters, and fire management. Systematic and relentless research is the tool of his trade.
A member of The Cape Aflame Project Team formed in April 2015, Mike authored The Cape Aflame – Cape Town’s Dance with Fire (82.7 MB ZIP), a community initiative educating Capetonians in Fynbos’s need of fire that raised a significant amount of money for voluntary public-service organisations.
A writer, editor, subeditor and researcher “on hiatus”, Mike has practiced newspaper and magazine journalism, spent 15 years in academic, legal and general publishing, and he worked as a technical writer for 20 years.
