Barking up the wrong tree in park
NOT long ago Table Mountain National Park declared war on alien vegetation.
Over the protests of many Capetonians, they hacked down century-old pine trees that had given shady walks to many.
This, we were assured, would restore water to our streams, preserve our flora, banish foreign invasion.
The result is illustrated in the picture (above), taken on the path in to Paradise in Newlands forests.
Port Jackson, pine and other foreign species have been allowed to re-establish themselves, an environment far worse than that which it has replaced.
How could we permit a national body to seize control of our heritage, to mess it up in this way, and then to walk away leaving us such a disaster?
The National Parks Board should have no function over a local asset, unless the locals prove incapable of looking after it themselves.
We were right to accept the old pine forests; National Parks should be ashamed of the disaster they have created. Philip Lloyd Rosebank