Court delays onset of pining for Cape shade

● The remaining pine trees in the Cape Town suburb of Tokai have won a stay of execution in the Supreme Court of Appeal.

The Bloemfontein court this week dismissed South African National Parks’ appeal against a high court judgment which said felling of the pines in the 25.5ha Dennedal section of the Tokai plantation could not be accelerated without public participation.

SANParks and its commercial partner‚ MTO Forestry‚ began felling the pines in August 2016‚ saying a wildfire 17 months earlier that damaged much of the rest of the 600ha Tokai plantation meant retaining them was not economically viable.

Felling stopped when Parkscape‚ a new organisation campaigning for shaded urban parks on the fringes of Table Mountain National Park‚ obtained an urgent interdict.

In March last year the High Court in Cape Town said the planned harvesting of the Dennedal pines could not be brought forward without the public being consulted.

The appeal court’s ruling confirms that decision. But the pines are doomed anyway‚ because they are due to be felled between 2021 and 2025 in terms of MTO Forestry’s lease agreement with SANParks.

In a majority judgment written by Judge Nambitha Dambuza‚ the appeal court said SANParks, in its management plan for the Tokai plantation‚ committed itself to ongoing public participation.

“The management framework embodied clear and reasonable undertakings to which the public was entitled to expect adherence‚ including being heard before decisions which could adversely affect its interests would be made‚” said the judgment.

Under the management framework for the pine plantations in Tokai and Cecilia (Constantia)‚ fynbos will be permanently reestablished in both areas within 38 years of the final pines being harvested.