Since early May, The Princess Vlei Forum has been bringing life back to the northern shore of Princess Vlei with the creation of a new seasonal pond (See A Heart Shaped Pond ), to help revive the magnificent seasonal wetland that once characterised Princess Vlei.
     This has been a group effort, with many hands helping to clear invasive species, revive indigenous plants that had been choked by grass and reeds, and plant indigenous species which were once abundant at Princess Vlei.

Planting benefits the plants, and the rich ecosystem that develops around the pound, including ducks, chameleons, frogs, insects, spoonbills and other waders, aquatic invertebrates and many others. But it also benefits all those who have the opportunity to get their hands in the soil and play a role in creating this flourishing life. This is particularly true for our young Princess Vlei Guardians. These experiences show them that you are never too young to help create a future where nature and humans, who are part of nature, can live harmoniously and flourish. They help to create an understanding of and love for the incredibly rich floral biodiversity in the fynbos kingdom, and spark their curiosity and kindness towards the many creatures who live in and around these ecosystems. A particularly exciting discovery has been the resident chameleons. 
      These are some of the planting events we have hosted this year, funded by the National Lotteries Commission.

On 30 May, in an event held in partnership with the Ingcungcu Sunbird Restoration Project,  twenty  Crestway high learners  planted 600 plants,  the following species: Zantedeschia aethiopica,  Elegia nuda,  Leucadendron laureolum, Imperata cylindrica, Berulea thunbergii, Watsonia tabularis, and Ehrharta calycina. Learners were taught about the importance of restoring wetland ecosystems and the role that seasonal ponds play within the broader freshwater system. They were taught how to plant indigenous species and how to idenitify the species that they were asked to plant.

On 16 June, 20 community members braved the rain and  dedicated Youth Day to helping create a better future for our youth. They put in nearly 300 plants, including Pelargonium triste,  Elegia nuda, Pelargonium cucculatum, Thamnochortus spicigerus. 

On 20 June, 32 children from Floreat and Harmony Primary put in 300 seedlings, as well as bag of rain daisies (dimorphotheca pluvials). Other species included Pelargonium Triste, Elegia Nuda, and the beautiful Wurmbea Stricta, or marsh flower. These learners too were given an understanding of how all life forms in the seasonal wetland work together, and how the plants they were putting in would contribute to creating a thriving ecosystem. 

In addition, for the past month Kamva Nose, our intern, has brought 27 students. Working in groups to 12,  from  CPUT to volunteer in clearing invasive plants and weeding our restoration sites. The students have also conducted insect, vegetation, bird, and frog surveys, and miniSASS surveys to assess the aquatic health of the vlei.  Kamva has helped to establish Princess Vlei as a great site for conservation students to develop their practice and get in volunteer hours.
    This exciting restoration project has been made possible with funding from the National Lotteries Commission, as well as the Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust managed by Nedbank Private wealth, the Kirstenbosch Branch of the South African Botanical Society, and the Rowland and Leta Hill Trust. 

Reviving seasonal ponds at Princess VLei
By Emma Oliver

 If you had looked at Princess Vlei from Elfindale or Windsor Park eighty years ago, you would have looked across a field of spring flowers to a myriad seasonal ponds where locals gathered waterblommetjies and pelicans and flamingos gathered in large numbers.
     Human impacts have radically transformed the landscape since then. The Vlei was dredged to absorb the seasonal flood waters, creating a single deep vlei rather than a community of flowing seasonal ponds. The bulrush typha capensis grows thick around the shoreline, barring direct access and view of the shoreline. Buffalo and kikuyu grasses have taken over - in the past, hippos, eland and later buck would have kept the grass down. 
      Reviving seasonal ponds, which fill with the winter rains and dry out in summer,  is a critical part of our work in reviving vibrant ecosystems in Princess Vlei, to help us bring back the waterblommetjies, micro frogs and a host of other fauna and flora. We created the first seasonal pond In 2019 on the northern shore line. This year we have expanded our restoration work on this side of the vlei (set back by a City Mowing contractor destroying our plants) and have created a second seasonal pond. The area around this has been the focus of our planting efforts with school learners, tertiary students and community members. 

The heavy lifting was done in April and early May by our restoration team supervised by Neil Petersen, who cut and uprooted out the long thick grass, ensuring no shoots remained to over run the area again. Several sturdy Brazilian pepper trees were cut down, and their deep roots dug out and removed. Other invasives  such as erigeron and the typha capensis were removed. The team also unearthed years of accumulated rubbish - shoes, clothes, plastics, concrete, builders waste, all the usual suspects. 
The soil we unearthed was rich and black, full of worms, humus and healthy biting mole crickets. The pond, by now a heart shaped muddy piece of ground, was planted out with isolepsis grass, to attract micro frogs (Microbatrochella capensis). These tiny frogs, once flourishing at Princesss Vlei, have become critically endangered and are only known to be at the  Kenilworth Racecourse.

The ponds have been filled with the winter rains, and now the planting work is accompanied by the calls of the clicking stream frogs from the nearby reeds (a good sign of a healthy wetland), and a pair of yellow billed ducks have moved in. A number of community and school groups and student volunteers have helped to develop this ecosystem. 
This pond is a collective effort, with many hands making it possible (see Planting the pond). We hope that you will join us in celebrating this beautiful piece of restored life. 

• This exciting restoration project has been made possible with funding from the National Lotteries Commission, as well as the Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust managed by Nedbank Private wealth, the Kirstenbosch Branch of the South African Botanical Society, and the Rowland and Leta Hill Trust.

Plastic pollution has a major impact on waterways such as Princess Vlei, harming local animals and creating an unsightly environment for those who go there to find beauty and peace. 
    But it has also become a major global threat, choking our oceans and waterways, killing thousands of sea birds and other animals each year, and multiplying other threats such as as climate change - the production produces greenhouse gases, it weakens ecosystems resilience, and contributes to flooding in cities due to clogged stormwater drains.  . It is now found everywhere, including in our blood, our brains, and breast milk.

     Plastic packaging and bottling has hugely enriched companies like Coca Cola, which take no responsibility for the waste they cause. Much is made of recycling as a solution, but only 9% is recycled, much of it can only be recycled once or not at all.
     It is easy to feel overwhelmed, but every action helps in tackling this life threatening issue. In May, the Princess Vlei Forum hosted a Tackling Plastic Workshop to explore how this issue can be taken up in local communities and schools. The workshop was attended by 15 participants, including 4 facilitators from the Princess Vlei Forum. Others were teachers and learners from Harmony Primary,  and Crestway High School, students from CPUT, and a members of the Ingcungcu Sunbird restoration Project.  
    The workshop aimed to give participants concrete ideas for tackling plastic in their commmunities.
     The workshop started with a presentation by Kamva Nose, which explained what plastic and microplastic pollution is, how it shows up in our bodies and in the environment, and how it impacts our personal health and our ecosystems. He also looked at the 5 R’s - Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and repurpose. While recycling, reusing and repurposing have an important role to play, it is clear that our priority is to put reduce and refuse plastic, through consumer choices, and putting pressure on policy makers to make polluters pay, on  and own industries to find alternatives. 
   

The presentation was followed by a group discussion. It  became clear that plastic has become entrenched in our lives, and there are many obstacles to limiting its use. It was stressed that while behaviour and attitude change of communities is vital, it needs to be accompanied by actions to push for policy change, and change in the practice of retailers. A well informed community can help to drive this. 
      After the first group discussion, Denisha Anand did a presentation on examples of campaigns to raise awareness or push back against production. She gave an overview of strategies to tackle plastic waste, and gave examples of community specific campaigns such as the campaign to replace small sachets sold in poor communities in Asia with refilling containers supplied by the consumer. 

The participants then worked in groups to come up with ideas for campaigns in their own communities. Three campaigns were proposed:

• A poster campaign at tertiary institutions highlight the health risks of micro plastic pollution
  
• A creative ‘Monday to Friday’ campaign to motivate school learners to collect litter and recycle where possible
• A campaign to support informal recyclers and litter pickers, and incentivise the collection of plastic that is not recyclable and therefore does not bring in an income. 
  

The workshop has already had an impact, with participants raising awareness and sharing their knowledge. We hope this continues, and look forward to hearing what creative ways they are finding to tackle plastic in their communities

Post by Emma Oliver and Bridget Pitt

Recent visitors to Princess Vlei might have seen our star Hyacinth hunters at work. Sydney Jacobs and his team, working in collaboration with the City, have pulled off a small miracle in clearing this sprawling invader.
    Water hyacinth is an ‘invader’ from South America. Water primrose, which is growing amongst the hyacinth, and Typha Capensis, the long reeds or bulrushes are indigenous, but their vigorous growth can make them invasive.
    These plants, in particular water hyacinth and water primrose, are a growing threat to our waterways and wetlands. Hyacinth reproduces through seeds and runners, and can double its growth in days. The seeds fall into the water ensuring it reproduces the following year. Unchecked, it covers the water in a dense carpet, blocking sunlight and oxygen, and killing aquatic life below.
    These invaders are a major headache for the City of Cape Town in managing their wetlands. The challenges are two fold:  removing the plants from the water faster than they can grow, and removing this biomass from the banks — without destroying the banks and biodiversity in the wetlands. At Princess Vlei, the City has previously relied solely on mechanical removal, which was extremely expensive, damaging to the banks and leading to disasters where our restoration sites were destroyed, plus ineffective as the hyacinth rapidly grew back in the months during Western Leopard Toad breeding season when operations had to cease.

With the injection of funds channeled to Princess Vlei through Nature Connect, and donor funding raised by the Forum, we met with role players from the City in November last year to draw up a strategy for dealing with the hyacinth. This included the use of hand teams operating from the banks and shore, the use of bioagents, mechanical removal from the shoreline and an amphibious weed harvester to remove growth from the water body.
    Action was launched with the release of bio agents by the Invasive Species Unit in December last year, in a controlled area at the inlet to the vlei. The Forum’s contribution is the ‘Green’ boat team, sourced and managed by local eco champion Sydney Jacobs. We purchased three boats, a motor, and gear such as waders, life jackets and cutters. Sydney, who also works at Zeekoevlei, is a genius at effective operations, and fashioned a ‘hyacinth plough’ to push clumps of hyacinth to the shoreline, as well as crafting specialized long necked rakes. By the end of January this year, the team was ready to roll.
    The boat team’s operation is simple but extremely effective. The team cut the hyacinth into squares, working from the boats or in waders from the shore. The motorised boat, the ‘Princess’, pushes these squares to the shoreline, where they are removed by hand or by machine and piled on the shore. The piles are removed by trucks contracted by the City.

The Forum has raised funds for 80 days of labour with the Green team — we are currently at day 55. So far 120 truckloads of hyacinth have been removed off site by the CSRM (Catchment and Stormwater River Management).  The Green team, often up to their waists in the water, cut loose the hyacinth and the boat pushes it out towards the long arm excavator for removal. This week, with the long arm properly in action for the first time, it has been exciting to see the master plan working as per our original design. The machine has hugely accelerated the rate at which hyacinth can be moved, and in a few days created 8 mountainous piles of hyacinth and water primrose on the banks.
    The biomass is taken to a dump an hour’s drive away as it has been declared too toxic for the landfill site at Muizenberg, only 7 kilometres south. Since the water quality at Princess Vlei is the cleanest of all the Vleis, this seems unnecessary and is slowing up the rate at which the biomass can be removed.
The Invasive Species Unit (ISU) have provided labour on the shoreline for removing the biomass, as well as their biocontrol programme. This deploys the megamelus bug and another weevil to feed on the hyacinth and assist in its elimination. The ISU progress was slowed by an invasion of painted reed frogs in their breeding tunnels, which were eating the megamelus. They had to remove these well-fed frogs and start again with the bug breeding programme. It is back on track now and the placement and impact of the bio agents is being monitored. More ‘bugs’ or bio agents have been ordered from Rhodes University, which is where they are sourced, to up their numbers in Cape Town. With bugs, it’s a numbers game and more equals better hyacinth elimination.
    Now that the long arm excavator is working, it has been exciting to see how effective this strategy is, coming at less than a tenth of the cost of a fully mechanised removal. However, critical elements promised by the City have not been delivered. The Long arm excavator came late to operations and the long-awaited weed harvester has not yet materialised. We are awaiting a boom at the inlet, promised for this week.
    Thanks to our combined initiative, the City now has a clear hyacinth management plan, and we are grateful to Cllr Southgate and various city officials for the progress made so far.  However the Forum has been the main driver for achieving the plan, and our green team works longer and harder than City deployed labour. This experience illustrates again that GPVCA cannot effectively be managed by different City departments without over sight. These leads to a lack of co-ordination by different departments, and sometimes disasters due to unsupervised contractors. We need one person to oversee what happens to both the water body and the land on this site. We hope that this experience will spur the City to more effective management strategies and delivery and will persuade the various role players that management under the Biodiversity Management Branch would be far more suited to this important wetland.
    To conclude on a happier note, nature continues to reward any investment made. With cleared banks and access to the water, the moorhens, darters, cormorants, herons, malachite and pied kingfishers, Egyptian geese and sacred Ibis are all more present. The birds love the new perches – the head and platform of the floating Princess are a favourite spot to hang out, as are the three boats, used by the Green team, and anchored permanently in the middle of the Vlei. We will continue to lobby the City to up its investment, plan ahead and ensure that all this work is sustained in the future

• Photographs by Sydney Jacobs, Kamva Nose, Jane Doherty and Bridget Pitt
• This project is made possible through funding by the Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust managed by Nedbank Private Wealth
  
• Read more about this project
  

  ‘The river was our mother, and just as you would never harm your mother so we were careful never to harm the river. There was a lot of indigenous wisdom about the rivers’ - Sicelo Mbatha, reflecting on the values he learnt as a child.

This is the message of our Source to Sea project. The project aims to help young people to understand the value of rivers, to our ecosystem, our biodiversity, our physical and spiritual health. The Princess Vlei Forum has designed a workbook with a series of observational and reflective exercises to focus the learner’s journey to understanding rivers.
    A group of high school learners from Manenberg is joining us on a journey to study the length of the Diep River - at it’s source, at the point where it enters the Little Princess Vlei, when it has been canalised, and the estuary at Sandvlei when it enters the ocean.
     On March 29, fourteen teenagers from the Manenberg based ‘Brave Rock Girls’ organisation, went up to Cecilia Waterfall, which is near the source of the Diep River on Table Mountain. We set off on a misty morning, for many the first time they had walked on this iconic Cape Town mountain.

On the way up, we looked at the river, and noticed how it moved rapidly down the mountain, tumbling over the rocks and small waterfalls. We spoke about the indigenous trees growing nearby, and the impact of our history and colonialism on our rivers and forests.
      After an hour of uphill hiking, we reached the waterfall. This perennial waterfall is a perfect place to study moss forests, and the life they support such as the tiny Moss Frog. Learners studied the moss plants through magnifying ‘loupes’ to see the intricate and delicate foliage, and tried to identify the different plants.
      The outing was educational but above all a fun and energetic experience for all, giving learners a good insight into how the Diep River begins its journey to the sea. Further excursions will enable the learners to study the river at different stages of this journey.

• Photos by Robin Moodley and Bridget Pitt
• Thanks to the National Lotteries Commission for funding this project.
  

‘We think Princess Vlei is a good place for a home (for an African swamp hen), except it has small snakes’

This was the view of Tristan, Tauruh and Razmay, Grade 7 learners from Levana Primary in Lavender hill.  The learners attended the wetland explorer experience at Princess Vlei last month. Over a hundred Grade 7 and Grade 5 learners attended the event, spread over three mornings.
       The learners explored Princess Vlei to assess it as a home from the point of view of three species: African swamp hen, Western leopard toad and a dragon fly. They used nets to explore the aquatic life at the vlei. Species found included a dragonfly nymph, water beetles, water.Scorpion, crabs and a tiny leopard toad, as well as several species of fish fingerlings.

Learners also went on a ‘fynbos treasure hunt’, in which they  were tasked to look for various treasures such as a beetle with spots, a creature which uses its legs to sing and so on. They were asked to find and describe their own treasures - these included ‘a long brown stick with a bunch of of feather like flowers gathered together’ and ‘a pink stone that is a very weird shape.’ A highlight of the treasure seekers was the discovery of three  Cape Dwarf chameleons. These elusive creatures have become more plentiful at Princess Vlei since thanks to community planting of indigenous species over the years.

A highlight of the morning was a canoe ride on Princess Vlei with Gravity Adventures. The Grade 5 learners battled a stiff wind on the one day, but all enjoyed the experience.

The restoration of the fynbos not only benefits the creatures and plants, but brings a deep and varied experience to learners from Lavender Hill and other surrounding communities. It provides a resource rich outdoor classroom,  enabling learners to learn much about science, nature, and themselves, while having fun.
     This experience forms part of our environmental education project which is funded by the Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust, Managed by Nedbank Private Wealth.

  The Princess Vlei Forum wishes to express our deep dismay at the destruction of yet another
sensitive restoration site by an unsupervised contractor.
On Tuesday 3 February, a mowing contractor drove over one of our restoration sites situated
on the northern shore, nearby Briana Crescent. Several hundred plants were destroyed.

The 1500m2 restoration site was established in 2023 to actively rehabilitate Cape Flats Sand Fynbos.
One hundred litres of seed, including Protea scolymocephala, Protea Rebens, and mix of annuals
were planted, and many of these had sprouted. Seedlings and rescued plants from areas
scheduled for clearing were also planted. The restored plant community included ephemeral,
geophytic and threatened Redlist species. One of the threatened flagship species that was
introduced to the area was the Rondevlei Spiderhead (Serruria foeniculacea).  More plants were put in by learners the following year. All plants in the site have been destroyed
      The Forum has invested thousands of rands in clearing this area of alien growth, and
planting out species to restore Cape Flats Sand Fynbos, critically endangered because of loss of
habitat throughout the Cape Flats. The northern shore of Princess Vlei offers a rare opportunity to
establish populations of this endangered vegetation and associated faunal species.
This follows two other incidents where restoration sites have been destroyed by unsupervised contractors ( see  Ripped up ....!  to read about these incidents).
      Under Recreation and Parks,  mowing operations have decimated critically endangered Cape Flats Sand Fynbos, despite efforts to make GPVCA and other areas no mow zones. Some residents pressure officials to mow because long grass is perceived to be untidy, so public awareness of the value of biodiversity is important. While adjustments to the mowing schedule have enabled the seeding of some wild flowers such as rain daisies, our restoration projects remain threatened due to unsupervised contractors, as this incident shows.
     We wrote to the mayor in February to express our concerns, but so far have had no response to our letter. City officials however have undertaken to replace the destroyed plants. This will only happen in 2026 as the plants have to grown especially. This puts our restoration site four years behind schedule.
     We believe incidents such as this will continue to happen until the GPVCA is under proper management under the Biodiversity Management Branch, and will continue to lobby for this.

• To read more about this restoration site, see Thirty young eco-guardians, a million seeds, and a little rain 

Post by Emma Oliver

It’s a perfect summer morning at the Princess Vei Park. No wind. Soft clouds. The floating princess and her reflection stand as one in the water and sky. Audrey and Sune, facilitators for Brave Rock Girls, arrive with 9 girls. The group energy is glum and heavy. No one has had breakfast and several have had little sleep with their year-end Prom happening last night. So we start with bread and juice. At the braai spots next to us a Pentecostal church group is gathering for their year-end celebration. Kettles are on the fire and chairs being placed for the seniors in the group. Beyond them, on the platform, the Saturday morning yoga class is taking place.

My brief from Audrey is that they want to learn more about fynbos. We walk along the shoreline and I tell the girls to ask questions about what they see and notice. First question. Why is that plant growing there and not there? She is pointing to clumps of sour fig (carpobrotus edulis). It’s a good question. Some of the sour fig look healthy with thick green stems and others look scraggy, shrivelling and heat stressed. We dive into everything about what might be going on for these plants. We bite on the stems, tasting the bitter antiseptic sap. The girls try the sap on their skin, feeling how it soothes. They break open a fruit, the fig, and experience that unique fynbos sweet and sour taste.
   It was a morning to touch, taste, smell, reflect and then draw. We were nature journalling. What did we notice? What did we see? What did we feel and hear? What was surprising? What made us wonder? We reflected on what we were seeing and how the experience might have been for those living many generations before us. We hardly moved from the one spot. Around us there was Bruinsalie (salvia Africana-lutea), wild rosemary or kapokbossie (eriocephalus), Wildedagga (leonotis leonurus) and of course water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes). Each plant is there with its own fascinating story, its personality, its many qualities to be explored. We could have stayed long.
    We ended the morning sitting at the table by the braai, painting our drawings, relaxing and unwinding . The girls shared what they hoped for in the holidays ahead. For all of them it was a wish for peace.

Post by Emma Oliver

 Tackling water hyacinth at Princess Vlei is an ongoing story of successes and failures as,  together with the CoCT, we have tried to come to grips with what is known as ‘the world's worst water weed’. Each year the situation gets worse as a carpet of the pretty but destructive water hyacinth spreads rapidly across the vlei.   The dense growth suffocates life beneath it, prevents access to the water, and disrupts the delicate balance in the vlei's aquatic eco-systems.
      In 2023 the City of Cape Town spent R9 million using heavy machinery to remove the water hyacinth. There was outcry over the amount spent, over the damage to the banks of the Vlei by the heavy machinery, and over the inadequacy of the operation to tackle the problem.   (See the post on the shoreline destruction). In 2024, no budget was allocated by the City to remove hyacinth, and the weed grew steadily. . There was a small die back in winter  but spring brought new growth, and now in summer it is  blossoming with its delicate lilac flowers and expanding rapidly.  The Southfield canal and Sassmeer outlets are completely clogged up. Hyacinth Islands blow across the Vlei,  and settle all around the shoreline, preventing access to the water. Dealing with it  is a daunting task that will take years of ongoing effort to manage.

      However, we have been given new hope that 2025 will be more constructive and productive. In June, the Princess Vlei Forum, via Nature Connect, received R60000 of a ‘noncompliance’ funding (funding given by a development project as penalty for flouting compliance requirements) which was to be spent on clearing invasive alien species. With this money we have bought a 15HP boat motor, a work boat, life jackets and waders, to be used by a boat team. We also raised funds for a boat team through Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust  (managed by Nedbank Private Wealth). The boat team will be headed up by Sidney Jacobs from the Friends of Zeekoevlei and Rondevlei. Sidney’s team have much experience  in this field from work in Zeekoevlei. Funding raised by the Forum will give them 24 days working on the water.

    In August, the Zeekoevlei Catchment Forum was formed under the leadership of specialist fresh water ecologist, Dr Liz Day. Princess Vlei lies within the Zeekoe catchment. The Catchment Forum brings together people from many diverse fields – the CoCT, NGOs, Friends Groups, volunteers – to find ways to improve the health of the catchment. This collaboration has enabled the creation of the Princess Vlei water hyacinth clearing team. The team members include city officials from Recreation and Parks, which is responsible for the banks and land around the vlei; from Catchment, Storm water and River Management (CSRM) which is responsible for the water body and operates heavy machinery, booms in the water, and land teams for clearing the hyacinth once out of the water; from the Invasive Species Unit, under Bongani Zungu, which is breeding and introducing megamelus scutellaris, or water hyacinth planthoppers,  as biocontrol agents. Another key player is Jane Doherty, who is completing a PhD exploring whether biocontrol can be effective on water hyacinth in the Western Cape. The Forum is supplying the boat and boat team and other supplementary funding.
    The aim of biocontrol is to get the planthoppers in their thousands to eat the hyacinth, make holes in it, and cause it to sink and die.  Large numbers of megamelus bugs are crucial for an effective outcome. The ISU at Westlake is breeding megamelus, and the Forum is paying for an additional consignment of the water hyacinth planthoppers  to be couriered from the Waainek Rearing Facility at Rhodes University. The first consignment of 5000  bugs has already been released on hyacinth in the Southfield canal.   Several consignments will be needed. The biocontrol work is new territory for many on the team, and needs  to be carefully monitored. The success of the operation depends on good communication between the different players. For example, it is essential to ensure  that the CSRM heavy machinery contractors don’t remove the hyacinth where they bugs have been released.
     The challenge for the Forum will be to liaise, push, collaborate, demand and do what it takes to hold the water hyacinth team together and ensure that the CoCT departments, the CSRM, Recreation and Parks, the Invasive species unit all deliver.  However, persistence and determination is a quality we have developed over the years. Watch this space.
    Huge thanks to all involved, and to Nature Connect and Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust managed by Nedbank Private Wealth for making this possible.

‘Hallo, my name is Faith, my first toad’s name is Abongwe, and the other one is Bukees. I’ve shown the whole life cycle with Bukees, from the egg, the tadpole, and growing legs, until his out and I’ve put some flowers with some insects, and a bright sun, and also the water with some fish inside, and by Abongwe we have some flies, clouds, a bright beautiful sun and also some insects and flowers.’

Faith was one of 84 learners from five primary schools who took part in our boats and toads project in November. The project, which was sponsored by the National Lotteries Commission, aims to generate excitement and passion amongst local school learners for the critically endangered Western Leopard Toad.
The Western Leopard Toad breeds at Princess Vlei every year, and migrates into surrounding communities between breeding seasons. Teaching learners about these creatures helps to promote community awareness and to safeguard the toads when they move into residential areas.
The program began with a field trip to Princess Vlei. Learners were given basic information about the toads, and went out with our volunteers and staff to do their own exploration of the creatures of Princess Vlei. Their mission was to ascertain whether Princess Vei has everything a toad needs in its habitat, and to asses threats, and breeding and foraging opportunities, for the toads.

Armed with nets and specimen tanks, the learners set off. They were excited to discover some thumbnail sized tiny toadlets. They also found tadpoles in various stages of development, juvenile fish, dragon flies and other insects, and shiny land crabs. While some learners were exploring the Princess Vlei aquatic and terrestrial life, others were experiencing the vlei from the water. Gravity Adventures were there with canoes to give the kids an adventurous but safe encounter with the water. A brisk wind on both days of the field trip made experience this even more exciting.
The field trip was followed by an art experience at two schools to enable learners to consolidate what they had learnt from their observations. Although the wind had prevented them from filling in worksheets during the field trip, our young natural scientists had absorbed the information. A question and answer session at the beginning of the art process confirmed that they knew about the toad’s life cycle and knew what toads needed in their habitat to breed and flourish.

The learners  created clay toads, and painted plates with a suitable habitat for the toads to live in. Many learners brought an extra flair to the task. Some, like Faith, created toads at different stages of development. One particularly creative learner, Rixario, created a hollow rock next to his toad, and hid another tiny toad beneath it.
The learner’s pride and enthusiasm was clearly displayed in the videos where they were asked to introduce their toads and explain what they had put in their habitat. All learners were delighted to do this, even those who, according to teachers, are reticent to speak in class.
This annual event is hugely popular with learners - this year we ran two groups to enable more learners to attend. It is truly holistic education, designed to stimulate all aspects of their intelligence: sensory perception, physical confidence and co-ordination, creativity, deductive reasoning, problem solving, observation and story telling among others. We are confident that these learners will hold a special place in their hearts for the Western Leopard Toads.
     A huge thanks to the National Lotteries Commission for funding this project, to Hillwood, Levana, Rosmead, Harmony, and Floreat Primary and their staff for participating, and to the fabulous guides from Gravity Adventures.