Abstract
Thomas Pakenham’s beautiful book on his ‘safari’ to find great trees in southern Africa was controversial (for some) in that nearly a quarter of his chosen trees are introductions to the region. Pakenham feared that these trees were under threat as undesirable ‘aliens’, including Tokai Arboretum’s world famous collection of Eucalypts and other introduced Australian trees:
It turns out that when the boundaries of Table Mountain national Park were decided in the 1990s Tokai Arboretum was included within the park. And the authorities who manage this national park are seized by one simple idea supplied by the Talibans: restore the former glory of Table Mountain by removing all the trees … within the park which are not indigenous to the region.2
The generations-old controversy over the planting of trees on Table Mountain was resurrected after the [Christmas Day 1935] fire — actually while it was still raging — and some claimed that the fire should be allowed to burn the whole mountain bare from Lion’s Head to Cape Point.
Annual Report for the Division of Forestry, 19361
There is a pleasure in strolling across a shady pine slope, but a sun-scorched, snake-ridden bush is just a slog for the hardy.
Mr R. Pothier, ‘For Pine Haters’, Cape Times, 1 February 1950
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Notes
T. Pakenham, 2007, In Search of Remarkable Trees (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson), p.164.
T.R. Sim, 1907, The Forests and Forest Flora of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope (Aberdeen: Taylor & Henderson), pp.51, 79;
A.M. Avis, 1989, ‘A Review of Coastal Dune Stabilization in the Cape Province of South Africa,’ Landscape and Urban Planning, 18, 55–68;
C. Joubert, 1996, ‘Commercial Forestry on Signal Hill and Lion’s Head, Cape Town,’ SAFJ, 175, 43–54, 45; Cape of Good Hope, Reports of the Conservators of Forests (C.G.H.), C.G.H.1890, p.61.
ARFD1919/20 U.G.7–’21, p.4; Republic of South Africa (R.P.), ARFD 1962/63 R.P.58–1965, p.26; 1966/67 R.P.37–1968, p.92; On Langa, see V. Bickford-Smith, E. Van Heyningen, and N. Worden, 1999, Cape Town in the Twentieth Century: An Illustrated Social History (Cape Town, South Africa: David Philip), pp.87–8.
Derived from annual reports of the Department of Forestry and G.L. Shaughnessy, 1980, ‘Historical Ecology of Alien Woody Plants in the Vicinity of Cape Town, South Africa’ (PhD thesis, University of Cape Town), pp.260, 267, 310.
On the building boom and afforestation, see C.G.H.1902 G.55–1903, pp.2, 4; C. Joubert, 1996, ‘Commercial Forestry on Signal Hill and Lion’s Head, Cape Town,’ SAFJ, 175, 43–54, 46.
MM, including Annual Reports of the City Forest Officer (ARCFO): MM1941, ARCFO, p.42; MM1952, p.10; MM1973, ARCFO, p.59; MM1974, ARCFO, p.62; MM1975, ARCFO, p.62. See also C. Joubert, 1996, ‘Commercial Forestry,’ 50–1. On the use of the Newlands Forests, and timber for ammunition boxes, see Cape Times, ‘Newlands Forests Keep Down Rate,’ 4 February 1944, 7.
A.W. Crosby, 1986, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe 900–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press);
R.H. Grove, 1995, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). On South African silviculture and Australian trees,
see B.M. Bennet, 2011, ‘A Global History of Australian Trees,’ Journal of the History of Biology, 44, 125–45. For thoughtful discussions of plant transfers, embracing biological and social dimensions,
see W. Beinart and K. Middleton, 2004, ‘Plant Transfers in Historical Perspective: A Review Article,’ Environment and History 10, 3–29;
C.A. Kull and H. Rangan, 2008 ‘Acacia Exchanges: Wattles, Thorn Trees, and the Study of Plant Movements,’ Geoforum, 39, 1258–72.
On terminology for invasive introduced plants, see P. Coates, 2003, ‘Editorial Postscript: The Naming of Strangers in the Landscape,’ Landscape Research, 28, 131–7. For the definition of invasive plants and perceptions on the Peninsula,
see B.W. van Wilgen, 2012, ‘Evidence, Perceptions, and Trade-offs Associated with Invasive Alien Plant Control in the Table Mountain National Park, South Africa,’ Ecology and Society 17, 2
and D.M. Richardson, P. Pyšek, and J.T. Carlton, 2011, ‘A Compendium of Essential Concepts and Terminology in Invasion Ecology,’ in D.M. Richardson (ed.), Fifty Years of Invasion Ecology: The Legacy of Charles Elton (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell), pp.409–20. For historical and cultural dimensions,
see B.M. Bennett, 2014, ‘Model Invasions and the Development of National Concerns over Invasive Introduced Trees: Insights from South African History,’ Biological Invasions, 16, 3, 499–512; B.M. Bennett and F.J. Kruger, ‘Ecology, Forestry and the Debate over Exotic Trees in South Africa,’ Journal of Historical Geography, 42, 100–9;
S. Pooley, 2010, ‘Pressed Flowers: Notions of Indigenous and Alien Vegetation in South Africa’s Western Cape, c.1902–45,’ Journal of Southern African Studies, 36, 599–618;
L. van Sittert, 2000, ‘“The Seed Blows about in Every Breeze”: Noxious Weed Eradication in the Cape Colony, 1860–1909,’ Journal of Southern African Studies, 26, 655–74;
J. Carruthers, L. Robin, J. Hattingh, C. Kull, H. Rangan, and B. van Wilgen, 2011, ‘A Native at Home and Abroad: The History, Politics, Ethics and Aesthetics of Acacia,’ Diversity and Distributions, 17, 810–21.
B.W. van Wilgen, 2012, ‘Evidence, Perceptions, and Trade-offs,’ 3.
Notably R.H. Compton, 1924, ‘Notes and News,’ JBSSA, 10, 3.
On MacOwan and Marloth, see C.H. Stirton, 1983 [1978], Plant Invaders: Beautiful, but Dangerous: A Guide to the Identification and Control of Twenty-six Plant Invaders of the Province of the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town, South Africa: Department of Nature and Environment Conservation), p.149. Harold Compton wrote on the need to control invasive introduced plants in 1924 in ‘Notes and News,’ JBSSA, 10, 3.
R.S. Adamson, 1927, ‘The Plant Communities of Table Mountain: Preliminary Account,’ The Journal of Ecology, 15, 278–309. On Fairbridge,
see L. van Sittert, 2003, ‘Making the Cape Floral Kingdom: The Discovery and Defence of Indigenous Flora at the Cape ca. 1890–1939,’ Landscape Research, 28, 1, 113–29, 115. Sir Arthur Hill’s diary of his South Africa Trip is in Kew Gardens Library and Archive, AWH/1/8 (1929), see 11–18 November.
ARFD1936/37 U.G.53–1937, p.25; C.A. Lückhoff, 1951, Table Mountain: Our National Heritage after Three Hundred Years (Cape Town, South Africa: A.A. Balkema), p.128.
Phillips quote from Cape Argus, ‘To Safeguard Mountain,’ 27 December, 1935, 11; see also Cape Argus, ‘Letters on the Fire: Lady Phillips’s Suggestion,’ 28 December, 1934, 11. On the Phillipses, see S. Dubow, 2006, A Commonwealth of Knowledge: Science, Sensibility, and White South Africa 1820–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp.189–93. For Reitz, see Cape Argus, ‘Mountain under State Protection,’ 28 December, 1935, 11.
Lückhoff, Table Mountain, p.116; MM1940, ARCFO, p.42; Cape Times, ‘Large Area of Bush Burnt at Glencairn,’ 21 January, 1942, 9; Cape Times, ‘Second Veld Fire at Glencairn,’ 28 December, 1943, 5; R.H. Compton, 1944, ‘Notes and News,’ JBSSA, 30, 5.
Wicht cited in B.W. Van Wilgen, 2009, ‘The Evolution of Fire and Invasive Plant Management Practice in Fynbos,’ SAJS, 105, 335–42, 338.
R.S. Adamson, 1953, ‘Can We Preserve the Cape Flora?’ JBSSA, 39, 11–12.
E.J. Moll and T. Trinder-Smith, 1992, ‘Invasion and Control of Alien Woody Plants on the Cape Peninsula Mountains, South Africa 30 Years On,’ Biological Conservation, 60, 135–43, 135–7.
Control of Alien Vegetation Committee, 1959, The Green Cancers in South Africa: The Menace of Alien Vegetation (Cape Town, South Africa: Citadel Press); see M.E. Boehi, ‘Being/becoming the “Cape Town Flower Sellers”: The Botanical Complex, Flower Selling and Floriculture in Cape Town’ (MA thesis, University of the Western Cape), 23; ARCE1979, Annual Report of the Parks and Forests Branch (ARPFB), p.19.
E.J. Moll and T. Trinder-Smith, 1992, ‘Invasion and Control of Alien Woody Plants on the Cape Peninsula Mountains, South Africa 30 Years On,’ Biological Conservation, 60, 135–43, see 137–9.
Interview with Prof. David Richardson, Centre for Invasion Biology, Stellenbosch, 15 October, 2007; I.A.W. Macdonald, F.J. Kruger, and A.A. Ferrar, 1986, The Ecology and Management of Biological Invasions in Southern Africa (Cape Town, South Africa: Oxford University Press);
D.M. Richardson, I.A.W. Macdonald, P.M. Holmes, and R.M. Cowling, 1992, ‘Plant and Animal Invasions,’ in R.M. Cowling (ed.), The Ecology of Fynbos: Nutrients, Fire and Diversity (Cape Town, South Africa: Oxford University Press), pp.271–308.
van Wilgen, 2009, ‘The Evolution of Fire and Invasive Plant Management,’ 339–40.
ARCE1991/92, pp.7–8. On fuel levels, see B.W. van Wilgen and D.M. Richardson, 1985, ‘The Effect of Alien Shrub Invasions on Vegetation Structure and Fire Behaviour in South African Fynbos Shrublands: A Simulation Study,’ Journal of Applied Ecology 22, 955–66. On costs, see F.J. Kruger, P. Reid, M. Mayet, W. Alberts, J.G. Goldammer, K. Tolhurt, and S. Parker, 2000, ‘A Review of the Veld Fires in the Western Cape During 15 to 25 January 2000,’ Department of Water Affairs and Forestry Report, 24.
Interview with Guy Preston; B.W. van Wilgen, R.M. Cowling, and C.J. Burgers, 1996, ‘Valuation of Ecosystem Services,’ BioScience, 46, 184–9, 184, 189.
D.C. Le Maitre, B.W. Van Wilgen, R.A. Chapman, and D.H. Kelly, 1996, ‘Invasive Plants and Water Resources in the Western Cape Province, South Africa; Modelling the Consequences of a Lack of Management,’ Journal of Applied Ecology, 33, 161–72; Interview with David Le Maitre, CSIR Natural Resources, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 15 October 2007; Interview with Guy Preston.
T. Pakenham, 2007, In Search of Remarkable Trees: On Safari in Southern Africa (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson), pp.10, 138, 150, 164–7; Cape Times, ‘ “Tree Taliban” Ignores Pleas to Save Green Heritage,’ 6 February 2007, 3; Sunday Argus, ‘Author Blames “Eco-Fascists” for Tree-Culling,’ 7 October 2007, 11.
See Stephen’s poems ‘The Balcony,’ ‘Above Camps Bay,’ ‘October Song’ and ‘A Farewell’ in S. Watson, 1995, Presence of the Earth: New Poems (Cape Town, South Africa: David Philip); Stephen Watson, 1989, Cape Town days, and Other Poems (Cape Town, South Africa: Cecil Skotnes and Clarke’s Bookshop).
Orion Planning, 2002, ‘Cape Peninsula National Park: Signal Hill, Kloof Nek and Tafelberg Road Initial Development Framework Report,’ prepared for South African National Parks/Cape Peninsula National Park, 30.
R.M. Cowling, I.A.W. MacDonald, and M.T. Simmons, 1996, ‘The Cape Peninsula, South Africa: Physiographical, Biological and Historical Background to an Extraordinary Hot-Spot of Biodiversity,’ Biodiversity and Conservation, 5, 527–50, 537–8;
L. Mucina, M.C. Rutherford, and L.W. Powrie, 2005, ‘Vegetation Map of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland,’ 1:1,000,000 (Pretoria, South Africa: South African National Biodiversity Institute).
Alan Nash, ‘The World Goes By,’ Cape Times, 30 December 1943, 4.
For a discussion, see S. Pooley, 2010, ‘Pressed Flowers: Notions of Indigenous and Alien Vegetation in South Africa’s Western Cape.’ For Pearson, Smuts, and Mandela, see Chapter 6.
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Pooley, S. (2014). Afforestation, Plant Invasions and Fire. In: Burning Table Mountain. Palgrave Studies in World Environmental History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137415448_8
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