Friends of The Liesbeek

Bloomberg does a blooming good job along the Liesbeek

jason — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:29:51 +0000

The Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a division of Bloomberg LP, helped the Friends of the Liesbeek plant 40 trees and weed out alien vegetation along the banks of the Liesbeek River. The trees were donated to the organisation by SANParks tree nursery, based in Newlands. The Friends of the Liesbeek wishes to thank all the volunteers from Bloomberg for their time in commemorating Earth Day (which was on the 22nd April), by helping us along the river. In total, 15 Wild Olive, 15 Cape Holly, 5 Assegai and 5 Cape Beech trees were planted along the river from Sans Souci Road to the cleared banks opposite the Wild Fig. We look forward to working with all of you again in the near future.

Talk at WESSA on the Cape Clawless Otter on 19th April

francine — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 07:38:09 +0000

Autumn 2012 Newsletter

Admin (Trev) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:03:12 +0000

We have just emailed out latest newsletter – its also available below for your convenience

Autumn 2012 Newsletter

LAND USE PLANNING BILL

francine — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:44:00 +0000

A message from WESSA

Dear all

Opportunity to make comment on Land Use Planning Bill

The Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEAD&P) have advertised the new Land Use Planning Bill for public comment until Thursday 5 April. Incorporated are changes to the Provincial Spatial Development framework (PSDF).

As the implications of such new legislation are significant you may want to send in a comment to the Department. With this in mind WESSA will have a focused discussion session this coming Monday 2 of April from 3 – 5 pm at the WESSA Barn – 31 The Sanctuary, Kirstenhof, Cape Town.

We apologise for the lateness of this invitation but the closest Departmental public meeting took place just a few days ago in Stellenbosch.

In brief, the Department says:
• The existing structure plan is outdated
• Planning legislation needs to be more closely aligned with the constitution
• New trends and policies need to be taken into account
• The old plan was too prescriptive
• There have been difficulties aligning municipal SDFs with the PSDF
• The new LUPA (Land Use Planning Act) would be very different from the old (1985) LUPO (Land Use Planning Ordinance) which would be superceded
• The idea is to have a one-stop-shop for “streamlined” development applications
• Credible forward planning is a major driver
• The roles of province and municipality need to be clarified
• There has to be a planning system that works for municipalities of different capacity
• The act will have defined principles and objectives
• There will be an independent Land Use Planning Board that will try to arbitrate conflicts

More detail and implications will be provided at the discussion session along with possible response templates.

If you can’t make it to the meeting but would like notes, a copy of the bill, or other information please contact us.
Best wishes,

Patrick Dowling
Regional Head: Education, Training & Public Capacity Building

Re-planting along the Liesbeek River bank in Observatory

jason — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:32:02 +0000

Re-planting of the cleared section along the Liesbeek River in Observatory will commence on the 2nd of April, in accordance with the arrangement between Friends of the Liesbeek and Cape Nature’s Working for Wetlands program. A number of local indigenous plant species will be planted along this section, the majority of which will be various groundcovers and small shrubs. The reasoning behind using these types of plants along the bank, is to prevent a repeat of the past where dense stands of tall vegetation decreased the safety of the public and offered cover for unwanted, anti-social behaviour in a public open space. Another reason is that by using low growing vegetation, we allow for the continued existence of a visual connection between people using the path and the river, which had never existed when the alien vegetation was present. There is also the potential of creating a path right next to the river in the near future. While it is agreed that area is not looking at its finest, we again ask for your patience in this matter as the processes we are going through are a neccessary evil in order to achieve the long term goals of rehabilitation and restoration along the river.

Should have any comments, questions and/or suggestions please feel free to contact info@fol.org.za

Dead Vegetation Along Liesbeek Parkway

jason — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:45:49 +0000

It came to the attention of the Friends of the Liesbeek that there was a growing concern from residents in Observatory of the increased growth of Indian shot (Canna indica) along the river bank next to the Liesbeek Parkway, opposite Valkenberg Hospital ground. This plant had completely invaded the whole river bank, allowing little else to grow amongst it and providing cover for people wanting to partake in certain anti-social behaviour. This added cover also provided shelter for a number of vagrants, many of whom were found to be hostile to people walking their dogs or simply enjoying the space next to the river.

To try and combat these issues, the Friends of the Liesbeek together with the department of City Parks, devised a plan whereby the Indian shot would be treated with a herbicide and then cleared away once it had died. The herbicide used was found to have great success on indian shot along the Lourens River, which is also undergoing rehabilitation.

The Friends of the Liesbeek is now actively involved in having the dead vegetation removed from this area and getting various agencies to play their part in re-planting the area with indigenous vegetation. However, during this time we ask you to please bear with us as the area will look brown and barren for the next couple of months.

Should you have any further queries or want any further information regarding the project, please contact info@fol.org.za

Fundraising Event to be held at SAB Newlands

jason — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 10:57:05 +0000

SAB Newlands will be organising and hosting a fun run or “dash” this Saturday the 17 March, to help raise funds for the work being carried out by the Friends of the Liesbeek. If you would like to find out more about the run please visit the following link http://www.topevents.co.za/index.php?sectionID=191

The South African Breweries has been instrumental in funding the start up operations of the Liesbeek Maintenance Project and their continued support has allowed the project to grow to the success it is today.

Water Quality and SASS

jason — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:24:28 +0000

The health of a river is often determined by the quality of the water that flows along its course. Due to differences in geology and vegetation, rivers around the country vary with regards to what is termed “healthy”. For example rivers in the Western Cape tend to have a lower pH (more acidic) than rivers up country. To account for these differences in the chemical characteristics of rivers around the country, scientists have developed the South African Scoring System (SASS).

(ecoafrica.com)

(Wikipedia.org)

The picture above is of the Palmiet River and on the bottom the Crocodile River in Mpumalanga. Notice the difference in colour which is indicative of different chemical characteristics.

This system incorporates the assessment of biota (living organisms) in rivers as a method of determining the condition or “health” of a river. Aquatic benthic macroinvertebrates (water insects that live on the riverbed) in particular, are recognised as valuable organisms for bioassessments. This is largely due to their visibility to the naked eye, ease of identification and rapid seasonal life cycle. For each genus of aquatic insects a score/number has been assigned to them, with the score being higher for those insects more susceptible to chemical changes in the river. Therefore, a high SASS score for a river is correlated to good water quality or a “healthy” river.

(watermonitoring.uwex.edu)

(ecologyadventure.edublogs.org)

Above is a picture of a dragonfly larva and at the bottom a stonefly nymph. The dragonfly larva is fairly common and can withstand substantial changes to a river, while the stonefly nymph is very sensitive to changes in the water and therefore has a high SASS score attached to it.

A potential problem for this method may arise in a situation where a stream or river flows through an urbanised landscape. Within these landscapes the habitat of a river, both in-stream and riparian is often altered, degraded or quite simply lost through development. This in turn may result the composition of insect communities, as available habitat can be one of the most limiting factors affecting aquatic insect communities. Therefore, if one were to use SASS to evaluate and monitor the health of a river in an urban landscape, it is not always easy to determine whether the absence of certain aquatic insects is due to poor water quality or due to loss of habitat.

It is without exception that rivers flowing through an urban landscape are poorer, in terms of biodiversity, than rivers flowing through a natural landscape and can therefore be considered as comparatively unhealthy. However, it is important to recognise that an urban river may possess good water quality without the presence of particular aquatic invertebrates.

Removing alien trees along our river

jason — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:49:50 +0000

For most of us the sight of lush green-leafed tress hanging over a gentle flowing river, invokes a sense of serenity and calm. However, it is true what they say, that “too much of a good thing is bad”, and this is exactly the case of the trees along the Liesbeek River. To be more specific we are talking about the alien trees along the Liesbeek, of which there are many. Alien trees by simple definition, are trees that do not originally occur within a specific geographical area and here in lies their success. They are able to out-compete our own native species because they might be better suited to the environment (e.g. fast growing) and they also have no competition or predation. Within the Western Cape, the majority of alien trees mostly originate from Europe and parts of Australia where water is readily available throughout the year. Hence these alien tree dominate the banks of our rivers as they require vast amounts of water (an example is the Port Jackson, of which a full grown tree can use up to 200 litres of water a day!). One can imagine from this fact, the negative impacts they have on our rivers. A major impact is the reduction in the amount of water flowing in the river because the groundwater (which makes sure our rivers flow in summer) is diminished by the alien trees sucking it all up.

Another impact arises out of the fact that rivers in the Western Cape are known as systems with low productivity because of the nature of the soil and the indigenous vegetation. What this means, is that our native vegetation is slow growing and drop leaves at a constant rate throughout the year. Alien trees on the other hand produce vast quantities of leaves on a seasonal basis (those of you who have to take the rake out in autumn will know what I mean). For the trees along the river, the majority of their leaves fall into the flowing waters of the river. This creates a problem for all the aquatic animals in the river that eat the leaves (from tiny aquatic insects to crabs). The river becomes overloaded with all the leaves in one season and so the shredders (aquatic animals that tear up and eat the leaves in a river) cannot clean the river of all decaying organic material. The increase in leaf litter helps to create a deeper silt layer and increases the nutrients available in the river, both of which the natural flora and fauna are not used to, and so the aliens trees are able to further out compete the natural plants as they thrive in nutrient rich environments.

Cape River Crab pictured in the river at Paradise Park

Along a river system it is healthy to have patches of sun and shade as different aquatic insects require differing amounts of both, in the water and along the banks. Unfortunately because many alien trees have the ability to completely overrun an area (a good example would be the Poplar Tree) they create large areas of shade along the river. This affects many of the aquatic insects that require sun. For example dragonflies love to bask in the sun and studies have shown, that by removing big alien trees in river systems helps to increase the amount of different species of dragonflies along the river. This is very important as we often use aquatic invertebrates to determine the health of a river and if they are absent from a river system we may wrongly presume it is because of the water quality, when it is in fact actually because they do not have the right habitat available.

The system of using aquatic invertebrates is called SASS (South African Scoring System) and I will put an article about the way it works next week. I hope this little piece of information has broadened your understanding of why we are constantly looking to remove alien trees along our river, and if you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me (jason@fol.org.za).

See you on the river,

Jason

Liesbeek River Project Manager

Information

francine — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:27:55 +0000

We often receive calls from people regarding incidents on the river.

CONTACT PERSONS AND NUMBERS

Liesbeek Maintenance Project: Jason 0846618264; info@fol.org.za or secretary@fol.org.za; Ntobeko 0710419424.
Water Pollution: Brian February (Bishopscourt to N2 Mowbray) 0216841077/0834688243
Johan Marthinus (N2 to Table Bay) 0842995595
Displaced Peoples Unit: Wayne.Aldridge@capetown.gov.za
Environmental Standby & Emergency (24/7): 0834 99 1717
Environmental Law Enforcement: David Morris or Vaughan Thompson 0217130510

Centre for Environmental Rights: 021 4471647
CITY CALL CENTRE City Complaints, repairs etc: contactUS@capetown.gov.za 0860 103089, SMS 31373 160 characters maximum. Get a reference tracking number.
ROADS & STORMWATER (Potholes, flooded roads and chemical or other spills) Telephone: 0860 103054 Postal address: PO Box X1694, Cape Town, 8000 E-mail: watertoc@capetown.gov.za
WATER & SANITATION (Emergencies such as leaks, burst pipes, sewer defects/blockages and complaints e.g. low water pressure and water wastage) Telephone (Account & consumption) queries: 0860 103 089 Fax: 021 957 4726 E-mail: watertoc@capetown.gov.za Website: www.capetown.gov.za/en/water

SOLID WASTE (Illegal dumping, wheelie bins, cleansing, extra cleaning) Postal address: PO Box 298, Cape Town, 8000 Telephone: 0860 103089 Fax: 0860 103090/021 4004302 E-mail: wastewise@capetown.gov.za Website: www.capetown.gov.za/en/solidwaste
CITY PARKS: www.capetown.gov.za/en/Parks
BIODIVERSITY MANAGEMENT BRANCH: www.capetown.gov.za/biodiversitymanagement
ENVIROWORKS: Biannual newsletter. Environmental Resource Management Department, City of Cape Town, 44 Wale Street, Cape Town 8001 PO Box 16548, Vlaeberg 8018 • Tel: 021 4872284 • Fax: 021 4872255 •E-mail: enviroworks@capetown.gov.za, Website: www.capetown.gov.za/environment