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.

Post by Denisha Anand

Thirteen Harmony Primary School  learners attended their first camp at Princess Vlei from the 22nd to the 24th November. Learners from Grades 5 to 7 spent 2 nights at the Eco Center, a recreational facility based at Princess Vlei wetland park in Southfield.
      They started off their camp with a walk to the Greater Princess Vlei where they were asked to listen to the sounds of nature, observe ecological relationships at the vlei, note any threats and come up with solutions to deal with those threats. After each walk (2 per day)  learners spent time journaling in the books that we provided for them. They also made drawings of the biodiversity and collected leaves, feathers and stones during their walks.

 The sunbird and fynbos workbook guided the activities that the learners did while on camp and they managed to complete their books by Sunday. They spent some time being creative on Saturday by creating fynbos ecosystem collages for their journal covers. Learners also made sunbird and protea stick puppets and learnt how to use ink and pastel to create beautiful patterns on their birds and flowers.
On Saturday evening they were treated to a night walk at Princess Vlei, escorted by our on site park rangers, they all felt safe enough to explore. The endangered Western Leopard Toads were out and about and the learners were lucky enough to see a few toads, spiders and even a crab!
They also did a listening exercise at night to compare the sounds that they heard during the day to that of the night. On Sunday we closed off with the campaign poster activity in the sunbird and fynbos workbook, where they created beautiful pieces to create awareness about the relationship between sunbirds and various fynbos species and how we can protect and conserve these relationships.
Thanks to the National Lotteries Commission for funding this camp.