The Concept

Upper Tokai Park is being overrun with invasive alien trees. SANParks is doing all they can to tackle the problem, and they have funding to clear 75% of the area in 2021. The Friends of Tokai Park have done an amazing job, and we are largely responsible for much of Lower and Middle Tokai Park being mostly alien free. However we are a volunteer-led organisation and we cannot be everywhere and do everything. So we need your support to clear Upper Tokai Park, and help to keep it alien free!

We need your school’s ecoclub, your company, your organisation and your family to sign up, and adopt your own plot at Tokai Park for the next few years (you can choose your period of committement: 1 year, 2 years etc). We have added information about these plots according to level of difficulty to clear (slope, accessibility), species of alien trees present, species richness (native flora), history and much more. Friends of Tokai Park will provide the training, and we have equipment that can be borrowed. Please contact us if you are interested, at tokaifynbosfriends(at)gmail.com.

If you cannot join in at this stage, but are interested in tracking progress, you can monitor progress by watching our map below: see who signs up, how much clearing is done, and which creatures and plants are spotted in which plots.

What are aliens and why should they be removed?

Aliens are species (either plants or animals) who occur where they do not belong. This could mean they have been brought from another country, or it could even simply mean that they have been brought from a neighboring mountain. It has nothing to do with country of origin, but everything to do with the species’ original distribution, and being moved (by humans) outside of this natural range. One critical example is that of Yellowwood Trees. People always think of them as “indigenous to South Africa”, and therefore people see nothing wrong with the Outeniqua Yellowwood (Afrocarpus falcatus) in Table Mountain National Park. However it is an alien here, the Real Yellowwood (Podocarpus latifolius) is indigenous in the Cape (and much of South Africa). The opposite of “alien” is “indigenous”. Whenever someone tells you something is indigenous, your question should be: “to where?”.

Now aliens can be both plants and animals, but our Adopt-A-Plot programme is focussed on clearing alien plants. Even more specifically we are interested in clearing invasive alien trees. Many species are aliens, but not all are invasive. Invasive alien species are a particular concern because they are able to spread rapidly, often with big impacts on other, native, species. We also focus on trees. Trees because they tend to grow quickly and tall, overshadowing the fynbos and killing it. The idea is that if we help the fynbos by taking care of the trees, the fynbos should be abe to care of alien shrubs and grasses itself. But we do keep our eyes out for particularly problematic plants and remove them when necessary.

Invasive. Alien. Trees. This is our focus.

Why bother? You might ask. Well, invasive alien trees threaten our economy (costing billions of Rands a year), our biodiversity and our water security. Compared to Fynbos, they increase fire risk and do not necessarily improve carbon sequestration.

Which are the main aliens to look out for?

Like much of Cape Town, there are many alien plants at Tokai Park, and also many invasive alien trees which are extremely problematic. You can find a full list on iNaturalist.org. At Tokai Park the major issues are Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha) and we estimate that we (with the schools) have cleared around 20 000-40 000 plants so far in 2020. There have been small numbers of Longleaf Wattle (A. longifolia ~150), Port Jackson (A. saligna ~100), Blackwattle (~1) and Stinkbean (~1) in plots cleared in Middle Tokai. There are various species of gums as well (~5). We are not worried about the annual aliens; the recovering fynbos must solve those, although the fire has done a great job of reducing Turtle Grass (Briza maxima).

Friends of Tokai Park Map of Invasive Alien Trees within Table Mountain National Park can be downloaded for free here.