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TUESDAY 15 December 2020 | Tel: 021 910 6500 | Email: post@peoplespost.co.za | Website: www.peoplespost.co.za
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People’s Post
CONSTANTIA CONSTANTIA
Greenbelts’ foot traffic doubles NETTALIE VILJOEN NETTALIE.VILJOEN@MEDIA24.COM
T
he hard lockdown did for the Constantia greenbelts what Whitney Houston did for Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” – it turned the relatively unknown open public spaces into a major hit. Since the easing of lockdown restrictions which forbade exercise, the human footprint at the 12 greenbelt walks in the Constantia Valley has doubled if not trebled, says Colin Walker, the chair of Friends of Constantia Valley Greenbelts, a non-profit organisation focused on the maintenance and improvement of these green spaces. And those feet belong to members of the general public drawn from far and wide – not just from the immediate area. “After the initial ‘house arrest’ which lasted for five weeks, people just had a yearning to get back to nature. I think it was a major wake-up call for many people who had taken our beautiful green spaces for granted,” Walker says. He says what is especially encouraging is that women, either on their own or in running or walking groups, feel safe enough to use these greenbelts. “Personal safety and security are paramount and so we try and ensure a good line
of sight by removing dense thicket growth close to paths to deter petty, opportunistic crime and muggings,” Walker adds. All greenbelt erven are registered in the name of the City of Cape Town and designated as public open spaces and as such, they fall under the management of the City’s recreation parks department. However, Walker says, the City’s budget for the greenbelts has been slashed over the years, which led to a gradual deterioration of the mandated task of the City to maintain the greenbelts. Other than the mowing and the removal of dangerous trees, very little regular maintenance is done by City teams, he says. “This still leaves us with the problem that greenbelts are not inert spaces; they grow. My question is, what state would they be in if there was no clearing of paths, removing fallen trees and branches and clearing out aliens, thinning out dense growth adjacent to paths that become potential mugging sites?” This is the gap that Friends of Constantia Valley Greenbelts, a non-profit organisation (NPO) founded in 1994, attempt to fill in a voluntary capacity. “We work in close association with the two main City officials who are responsible for managing and appointing City contract teams to undertake work in the greenbelts. Friends have an excellent working relationship with both these officials and all work in
the greenbelts undertaken by us has their sanction,” Walker says. He adds that certain specialised units sponsored by the City, such as Greenjobs (rehabilitation) and Alien Invasive (alien control), will on an ad hoc basis do valuable work across many greenbelts. “However, these interventions will be on an individual project basis and be focused or limited in extent.” Walker points out that the greenbelts are not gardens, nor are they nature reserves. “We see the greenbelts as green arteries linking suburbia with the greater Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) wilderness area. This is not only true of the flora, but also the microfauna, larger animals and birds. As these greenbelts are surrounded by suburbia, a constant balance needs to be maintained between the green artery concept and human impact,” he adds. The greenbelts all follow the courses of rivers comprising the Sand River catchment. This catchment starts at Kirstenbosch on the southern side of Wynberg Hill and it continues to Zandvlei and the sea at Muizenberg, traversing the district of Tokai en route. With such a large area to cover, the NPO relies on a group of voluntary river wardens spread out across the many greenbelts to be its eyes and ears on the ground. Walker says observations, suggestions and complaints are directed at the two officials for
accelerated attention. Most of the work in the greenbelts, done on behalf of the NPO, are carried out by a trained team of six to eight landscaping workers. At the start of the national lockdown, they were cut off from any source of income. The NPO, as well as a few of the team’s other clients and landscapers, sponsored each member (family) with R100 a day for food. “We budgeted for three weeks and just made it through, sponsor wise. But another two weeks of level five was enforced and so we had to scramble to raise more cash. All in all, we raised close to R30 000 from all parties for the five weeks to feed these families,” Walker says. All work undertaken by the NPO is self-funded. It receives the bulk of its funding through glass recycling. Walker encourages all members of the public who would like to support the greenbelts to take their glass recycling to the recycling depot past the boom at the back of Constantia Shopping Centre. “To those who visit the greenbelts, please stay on the paths and, above all, please don’t go to the effort of picking up your dog poo, putting it in a plastic bag and then hanging it on a branch and leaving it there for decoration. Rather just kick the poo out of the path,” he says. As a safety tip, Walker appeals to runners not to jog with earphones in their ears or their cellphones visible.