Table Top Mountain Project
Project Overview
PATT Foundation is currently looking for donors/investors who want to join us in becoming a custodian of the natural flora of a WORLD HERITAGE SITE and a world Icon – Table Mountain. The Cape Flora Region (CFR) which Table Mountain falls under is the smallest and richest of the six floral kingdoms that occur on earth. It is also the only kingdom confined to one continent and is home to an amazing 8,200 plant species. The significance of this hits home when you consider that the British Isles, 3½ times the size of this park, boasts less than 1,500 plant species. This project will establish a nursery to provide trees for general reforestation, trees for medicinal purposes as well as bulbs. Education and training for local communities will also be conducted to help preserve their cultural practices, and provide important local plants and herbs for the empowerment of these communities.
Project Details
Situated at the southwestern tip of Africa, the Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) encompasses the incredibly scenic Table Mountain Chain stretching from Signal Hill in the north to Cape Point in the south and the seas and coastline of the peninsula. The narrow finger of land has within its boundaries two world–renowned landmarks – the majestic Table Mountain and the legendary Cape of Good Hope. TMNP is recognised globally for its extraordinarily diverse and unique fauna and flora; with rugged cliffs, steep slopes and sandy flats, it is a truly remarkable natural, historical, and cultural asset both locally and internationally. Nowhere else in the world does an area of such spectacular beauty and such rich bio–diversity exist almost entirely within a metropolitan area – the thriving, cosmopolitan city of Cape Town.
Many of the plants that occur here are endemic, meaning that they occur nowhere else on earth. To add to this, an estimated 1,406 plant species are threatened, 300 of which are endangered or critically endangered and 29 plant species already extinct. It is this combination of high diversity and levels of threat from urbanisation, poor fire management and alien species, that makes the CFR the world’s top floral hot–spot.
As part of South Africa’s many varied cultures, traditional healers use natural items such as tree bark for their herbal potions. Because Table Mountain is seen as a sacred place in terms of cultural importance, the potions made here are deemed to be extra potent and thus more highly sought after (much like shark fins, highly poisonous snake blood, etc.) Unfortunately, some have seen this area of indigenous trees as an area to illegally obtain the various herbal materials – tree bark, indigenous bulbs – to sell for profit.
In a space of 18 months about 1000 trees each 150 years and older were stripped of their bark in an unsustainable way, killing the trees.
PATT's project in partnership with TMNP will teach the traditional healers from local communities how to grow the various plants sustainably, harvest them correctly and provide mother stock and training to start additional areas for the healers’ own use. Currently there are over 200 traditional healers in the immediate surrounding area, and we would cater for those that come from farther afield as well. Local schools and general public interest groups can help with the replanting throughout the year, and heighten awareness of the need for conservation in this area, however funding is needed to get things started.
