Silver lining in the Table Mountain fire

After a fire swept across 3,000 hectares of Table Mountain National Park in April, millions of invasive plants have popped up. This is a rare opportunity to remove them before they get too large.

“Alien plants are relentless, but we are relentless as well,” says Raymond Chinembiri, team leader at the Sugarbird Project, an organisation dedicated to removing invasives in the Table Mountain National Park.

After a wildfire swept through Silvermine in April this year, burning about 3,000 hectares, millions of invasive plants have sprouted, trying to outcompete the indigenous fynbos.

Sugarbird Project saw this as a rare opportunity to remove the seedlings before they become a bigger threat.

“The fire will cause about 90% of the invasive seed bank to germinate, creating a critical window of opportunity to clear it by hand-pulling the saplings while they are still small and the ground still soft - before they take hold again,” the organisation said in its annual report.

About ten teams from the Sugarbird Project, with help from NCC Environmental Services and public volunteers, moved in quickly to start removing the seedlings. Millions of tiny Port Jackson seedlings have since been removed from the Silvermine Valley.

Taking us through the valley, Chinembiri pointed out where fynbos seedlings were growing in areas where invasives were recently cleared. “You can see the difference,” he said, adding that seeing the fynbos regrowth is a source of motivation for the teams.

We saw several teams hard at work pulling seedlings, hacking at invasive stems, and applying herbicides.

A young Port Jackson seedling. These plants are especially difficult to deal with when they are older.

“Port Jackson is a difficult plant to deal with. Even though one is burnt up, the root system might still be alive,” Chinembiri explained, pointing out a burnt stem of Port Jackson, with leaves already regrowing from the base of the stump. “Once they grow big, they are more difficult to deal with,” he said.

There is still a long way to go for the Sugarbird teams. According to their recent annual report, they’ve tackled 3,300 of the TMNP’s 25,000 hectares, including areas such as Signal Hill, Lion’s Head, Newlands Forest, Cecilia, Kirstenbosch, and others.

They have about 12 teams working on clearing the alien plants, nearly all of them in Table Mountain National Park, and one in Hermanus.

Chinembiri said their mission is to ensure “indigenous plants which have been outcompeted with alien plants are given another chance to flourish”.

Invasive alien plants is one of the biggest threats to biodiversity in the Cape Floral Kingdom. Many fynbos species are endangered and at risk of going extinct because of invasive species.

Maya Naumann, one of the founders of Sugarbird, said they have a good working relationship with SANParks, which manages the park and has given them permits to access the areas they work in.

Team leader Raymond Chinembiri said that they want to restore biodiversity and allow fynbos to regrow. He says that they are calling on volunteers to assist them because “this is for our future generation.”

Several public volunteers have also joined volunteer days to pull seedlings. These happen every Saturday and are open to the public to join.

“It’s such a big problem,” said Naumann, adding that you need a lot of volunteers, people organising labour, and SANParks working together to tackle the problem.

The organisation gets most of its funding through donations.

Chinembiri said the teams have been trained by specialists and botanists to know what to look out for and identify plants.

Sugarbird team member, Unathi Tshingana, said he loves spending most of his working hours in the mountains. His knowledge of conservation has “grown”, he said.

“I know most of the alien plants now. Every day, every month, you come across new plants,” he said.

But working in the mountains can be dangerous, with steep terrain and snakes. “But they said they are non-venomous,” he said, as he laughs.

For Chinembiri, removing invasives is about protecting the heritage of fynbos. “We are trying to restore biodiversity to make sure the indigenous plants, the fynbos…get another chance. It’s for the benefit of the future generations, so they can see the beauty of our nature,” he said.

Invasive alien plants are a major threat to the biodiversity of the Cape Floral Kingdom.

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