Cape Town - SANParks will be removing approximately 40 hazardous, dead and diseased standing trees in the Lower Tokai pine plantation of Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) this week to ensure the safety of the area for recreational users and reduce fire risk.
This comes after concerns by Parkscape that the decaying trees were falling down and posed a major safety risk to forest users.
Parkscape founder Nicky Schmidt said the trees were either dead and in danger of falling, or they were diseased and dying and would become a safety risk soon.
In addition, Schmidt said previous removal of hazardous trees meant there was a growing fuel load, particularly in the easternmost section of the plantation, and thus Parkscape also requested this be removed so the plantation floor was kept clear and fire risk was removed.
Schmidt said: “We first reported the trees in early September and have been trying to get them removed since then.”
TMNP alerted that MTO Forestry would be removing the trees on December 6 and 7 and that in addition to the safety of the area for recreational users, this activity would also assist with addressing the fuel load risk in the eastern compartment of the plantation along the urban edge adjacent to the Dennedal suburb of Tokai.
SANParks spokesperson Lauren Howard-Clayton said: “TMNP Fire Management will provide Working on Fire teams to assist MTO Forestry with the clearing and fuel removal operations.
“TMNP central operations staff will help with cordoning off the area during the operation. We would like to advise users to please exercise caution when carrying out their activities in the park during this time.”
Schmidt said: “Given what happened in 2016 – when SANParks and MTO tried to fell Lower Tokai without public engagement (which ran counter to the intensely negotiated 2008 Tokai Cecilia Management Framework) and the subsequent successful litigation by Parkscape against SANParks and MTO – members of the public and certain stakeholders are concerned that this round of maintenance may be a repeat attempt to illegally fell the Lower Tokai plantation.”
Schmidt said that while 30 or 40 trees sounded like a lot of trees to be removed, the plantation consisted of some 5 000 trees and the trees being removed were either dead or dying.
kristin.engel@inl.co.za