Tokai Park, an integral part of Table Mountain National Park, lies immediately adjacent to the City of Cape Town’s subub of Tokai. It is certainly no stranger to crime. This is, perhaps, not altogether surprising in a country where, according to The Wealth Report – 2021, a net wealth of R2,7 million puts the individual among the nation’s “one percenters”.

We therefore urge all recreational users of Tokai Park to remain as alert to criminal activity as they would elsewhere in the city.

That stated – and stressed, it is essential that our approach to crime remains grounded in fact. Avoiding our pristine natural areas because of perceived, rather than real, threats would be counterproductive. We and our many hundreds of thousands of visitors reap immeasurable rewards immersing ourselves in the natural beauty about us.

Statistics on crime in the Tokai neighbourhood from a local police station show that one or two house break-ins are reported monthly. More reports of trespass and theft from motor vehicles are received. Lower Tokai Park, with three known incidents reported since 2016, is orders of magnitude safer than its surrounding suburbs.

Even so, one of the incidents, the horrific rape and murder of 16-year-old Franziska Blöchliger in 2016, should serve as a reminder that we are nowhere exempt the shocking reality of violent crime in South Africa. Franziska’s death, as well as those of two young cousins killed by a falling gum at Tokai Park in 2002, will not – and should not – easily be forgotten.

To keep yourself constantly abreast of recent criminal incidents at Tokai Park and elsewhere in Table Mountain National Park, consult André Colling’s most excellent, regularly updated Table Mountain Crime Map.

Social Media’s mugging of facts and crime stats

[I]t is predominantly affluent whites who use new media platforms and technologies such as Facebook groups, webcams, and mobile phone apps to share, celebrate, and spectacularize Kruger natures. What is more: they share Kruger natures as they like to see them: without context, history, or positionality. This, for many, represents a deep “truth about nature” — namely, that nature is at its best without (other) people.

[…]

… new media technologies may help to reinforce the racialized and unequal class hierarchies of the social order that fortress conservation was built on.

Büscher B. Kruger 2.0 – The Politics of Distinction in The Truth about Nature – Environmentalism in the Era of Post-truth Politics and Platform Capitalism University of California Press, Oakland, California 2021

It is a fact that some populist groups on Facebook and other social-media platforms hold that, owing to its density, reintroduced Fynbos is responsible for whatever crime there is at Tokai Park. However, Friends of Tokai Park, as co-guardians of this nationally protected Core Fynbos Conservation Site (with SANParks, the City of Cape Town, SANBI and the National Botanical Society of South Africa), maintain that criminal activity cannot be tied to vegetation type and we will not allow alarmists to abuse Franziska’s murder and other tragic events to promote, in this instance, the retention of pine trees at Tokai Park. Such abuses of tragedy are themselves criminal.

Scientific research shows no evidence linking Fynbos to criminal activity. In an article reporting insights from Cape Town, the researchers state:

We argue that the incidence of crime may not always be determined by the biogeographical status of dominant plants (i.e., whether vegetation is dominated by native, alien, or invasive alien species).

Potgieter LJ et al. Does vegetation structure influence criminal activity? Insights from Cape Town, South Africa Frontiers of Biogeography 11(1) 2019

A recent social-media campaign to – without foundation – tie the restoration of Fynbos  at Lower Tokai Park to gender-based violence (GBV) initially proved a shockingly brutal affront to all those whose lives have been marred, shaped or ended by violence, rape or murder.

However, the lack of consideration driving those behind this egregious abuse of social media is highlighted by its reference to victims and survivors of such violence as “fallen angels”.

In Abrahamic religions, fallen angels are angels who were expelled from heaven. The literal term “fallen angel” appears neither in the Bible nor in other Abrahamic scriptures, but is used to describe angels who were cast out of heaven or angels who sinned. Such angels often tempt humans to sin.

Fallen angel | Wikipedia

The duplicity behind this campaign to subliminally link fynbos to crime was ultimately self-defeating, as its callous and insensitive use of terminology implied that victims of GBV either “deserve what they get” or “get what they ask for”.

Furthermore, the retention of these pines as a deterrent to such crime at Tokai Park is argued as being necessary to establish a “much-needed urban park” in the area. The argument is specious. Our Recreation page and numerous academic studies show Tokai and the Constantia Valley, by comparison to the rest of Cape Town, to be over-endowed with such green urban infrastructure.

Areas with White residents report 6-fold higher income, have 11.7% greater tree cover, 8.9% higher vegetation greenness and live 700 m closer to a public park than areas with predominantly Black African, Indian, and Coloured residents. The inequity in neighborhood greenness levels has been maintained (for Indian and Coloured areas) and further entrenched (for Black African areas) since the end of Apartheid in 1994 across the country.

Venter ZS et al. Green Apartheid: Urban green infrastructure remains unequally distributed across income and race geographies in South Africa Landscape and Urban Planning 203 2020

Were Lower Tokai Park not a Core Fynbos Conservation Site and home to much of our remaining 1% of protected Critically Endangered Cape Flats Sand Fynbos, rezoning the area for low-cost housing in a city suffering horrendous social and economic inequity would be blindingly self-evident and in keeping with the City’s policy of densification.

In as much as pretending Fynbos leads to crime at Tokai Park is itself a crime, lending credence to the notion that Tokai Park faces a “crime problem” similar to that faced by adjacent suburbs separated by indredibly steep socio-economic gradients serves only to promote and perpetuate a morally bankrupt fear of “outsiders”.

Citizen fear-management strategies of erecting walls and enclosing neighbourhoods have had a perverse effect, leaving both public and private spaces devoid of…natural surveillance (and thereby less safe), and making use of a perverted form of…”defensible space” to facilitate tribal territorialism that serves to increase fears and deepen segregation.

[…]

This “new apartheid” is not driven solely by fear of crime, but also by fear of, and prejudice against, other social groups, encouraged by South Africa’s exclusionary history. Redressing this urban sociospatial inequality requires that exclusionary mindsets be challenged.

Lemanski, C. A New Apartheid? The spatial implications of fear of crime in Cape Town, South Africa Environment & Urbanization 16(2) 2001

Nonetheless and no matter the agendas of populists posing as promoters of urban parks, the ugly reality of attacks, muggings and theft on the periphery and, occasionally, deep within the Park means that we would be neglecting our and others’ safety were we not always to bear SANParks’ safety tips in mind. To avoid becoming a victim of crime, please take the following listed precautions:

• Try not to walk/jog/cycle/horse-ride alone; four is the ideal number.
• Let someone know when to expect your return (family or friends).
• Stick to well-used and marked paths, which will be indicated on the Park’s hiking map and read the warnings on this map. Don’t take shortcuts.
• Take a fully-charged cell phone. Some parts of the Park do not have cell phone reception, but you will always be able to reach a place where you can use a cell phone more quickly than you’ll get to a landline.
• Do not attract unwanted attention by openly displaying cash, cameras or other valuables.
• If you are confronted by a criminal, don’t resist. Hand over your goods as resistance might incite a mugger to violence.
• Program emergency numbers in your cell phone before your walk.

Current hotspots include parts of Table Mountain National Park’s Northern Section – around the City Bowl and its eastern flank – and the Southern Section – at Red Hill (Kleinplaas Dam and its immediate surrounds). Please be cautious.