Princess Vlei is a good place for Western Leopard Toads to breed because it is full of natural vegetation and is a very calm and peaceful place…there is enough space and there are lots of water plants where the tadpoles can hide… it is isolated from people… there are flies, butterflies and dragonflies for them to eat…
     These were some of the observation of  the  toad explorers from Harmony, Rosmead and Levana Primary, and Lotus High who came to Princess Vlei on a field trip to investigate what Western Leopard toads need to live well, and to breed. The explorers looked out for insects that the toads might eat, and for plants that would attract insects and give the toads somewhere to hide. They explored the water creatures, including small fish, tadpoles and water beetles. They used nets to catch them and study them briefly before returning them to the water. They made note of threats to the toads, such as predatory birds, plastic pollution, and cars to migrating toads.
       A small toad was observed in the biomass which had been piled up by the City next to the outlet canal. This is a concern as the City contractor was due to move the biomass months ago. Moving now poses a threat to the newly emerged toads, as this observation confirms. Other fauna spotted were tadpoles, nymphs of dragonflies and mayflies, various water invertebrates and fish fingerlings.

A highlight of the field trip was the opportunity to explore Princess Vlei by water, thanks to Gravity Adventures who gave the learners a safe but exciting experience of canoeing. A month later, toad explorers from Floreat and Buck Road Primary and Crestway High came to Princess Vlei for the toad experience. A brisk wind whipped up waves on the vlei, making the canoeing especially exciting.

A week after the first field trip, the toad explorers met again at Harmony School Hall, joined by Buck Road Primary. They created their own toads and tadpoles out of clay, and painted habitats for them on paper plates, making sure to include everything the toads and tadpoles need such as water,  insects, reeds, and other plants.
    Encouraging the learners to explore the vlei from the perspective of a toad, and to later sculpt and create a story around their toads, nurtures their curiosity and creativity. It enables them to look at the world with more than human eyes, and to understand that all living creatures need a safe place to live with food and shelter.
    Thanks to Gravity Adventures, the teachers and Harmony Primary School for hosting us, and Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust managed by Nedbank Private Wealth for supporting our educational work.

post by Emma Oliver

'We come to the mountain for peace, to get away from and out of the home situation, to come into nature to be able to breathe, to come into nature to find the kind of peace which only nature can give, to relax, to have fun together.’

These were some of the reflections from learners who attended the hike to Ceclia Waterfall on November 4. Twenty-one learners gathered at 8 am in the Cecilia Forest car park, together with their teacher Shafiek Isaacs and two assistant teachers. Also there was Tariq Isaacs, Shafiek’s son, who was very familiar with the route we were taking, plus Simon Tamblyn and myself.

Cecilia waterfall is the beginning, or near the beginning of the Diep River which eventually flows into Little Princess Vlei and from there to Sandvlei and to the sea. The event marked a shift in our educational focus to making learners aware of how Princess Vlei is connected to other water ways, on of how water connects us all. There were several aims to the hike: to have fun, to experience being on the mountain, to get to the waterfall and to make all the source to sea connections. Learners were also supplied with ‘loupes,’  small magnifiying lenses used by jewellers, to enable them to study  mosses and other fine flora and fauna.

Before we set off, I encouraged the learners to listen out for any messages which the mountain, the forest or the waterfall might have for them. The group headed off fast at speed. We took the route that follows the stream up the mountain. The whole trail was busy, with plenty of other groups of hikers. We stopped as necessary, to allow slower members and those who hadn’t had breakfast, to catch their breath, or for  Shafiek and Simon to give some ‘in situ’ natural science lessons about mosses, fynbos, water cycles, rivers and catchments and the mountain.

Once at the waterfall, some learners had freshwater showers, others enjoyed their snacks and the beauty of the place, or studied the mosses and other plants growing there. Our final stop on the way down, by the big Eucalyptus tree on the contour path, was time for a moment of reflection. There was a township choir who were singing. Shafiek led a time for ‘listening to the sound of the trees and the wind’ and learners shared some reflections. It was an enjoyable morning for everyone.

"Engaging community means listening well and being aware of how alienating language and jargon can be... if you can’t operate with different languages and different thinking  you are going to struggle as a community activist." - Luzann Isaacs

This was one of the many take-home ideas to emerge at the Princess Vlei Forum's second Community Conservation Conference held on 28 October at the Lookout at Zandvlei in Muizenberg.

Approximately 30 people attended, representing 18 different community conservation and friends groups across the city.

Dr Don Kirkwood, curator of Stellenbosch botanical gardens spoke on the complexity of the current landscape – figuratively, in terms of this time of mass extinction and literally, in terms of the extraordinary diverse spatial complexity and local patterning existing in the local Cape Floral kingdoms. Setting a context of global and national South African conservation strategy, his message to NPOs and Friends groups was that it’s better to work small, on small pieces of land, to focus, conserve and engage meaningfully with what is possible, rather than attempting big ambitious schemes, which often fail. He held up the work at Grootbos as an example of good practice.

'Recognise the unbelievably rich patterns of diversity which exist in our landscapes. Engage deeply the patterns of birds, insects, flora etc to the people who matter. Landscapes is not just greenstuff. Whatever is left now, IS important. Search and rescue work is important. Preserving and looking after landscape is important. We use spaces not just for learning about the environment but in appreciation as to how complex and beautiful is our Cape flora’.

Luzann Isaacs, who has been the site manager of the Edith Stephens Nature Reserve for the last 18 years spoke with passion, wisdom and insight on the best ways to engage and invest in communities in order to bring out the best for both community and nature.

She addressed the challenges of working with communities and conservation, and the need to keep open the conversations between pressing social issues and the environmental issues. As an example, she gave the struggle down the years with fencing at Edith Stevens. Do you put a fence? Do you not? Who are you keeping out? What are you keeping in? From her experience, she stressed the importance of engaging with whole communities eg the neighbourhood watch groups, the community policing or health forums.

Engaging community means listening well and being aware of how alienating language and jargon can be.  ‘If you can’t operate with the different languages and different thinking (that exist in communities) you are going to struggle as a community activist. You need to think about that!’ Community conservation work also means being very conscious of the issues of power, control and ownership which exist both within institutions and within communities.

Luzann led us in a ‘listening exercise’ where we had to work in a group of 5 people who we didn’t know to come up with a burning question for everyone. Questions that arose from these groups included ‘How do you resolve the conflicting needs of homeless people and conservation areas? How do you know an area has value for conservation if it does not have a fence? How do we resolve the need for recreational space with the need for pristine fynbos?

Luzann stressed the importance of finding solutions that work for the community, of doing action based planning and building coalitions to work collaboratively.

Denisha Anand, Princess Vlei project manager and member of the Mayoral advisory committee on Water led a discussion around managing sites with water bodies. She said the City of Cape Town are doing some good things. There is more of an awareness of the interconnection of waterways. She named the Liveable Urban Waterways project, currently at scoping stage, as an example. Also, the advisory committee as positive initiatives. However, there are still many problems - Denisha  invited people to share specific problems which they are facing currently. Those raised included sewage and water pollution, poor solid waste management, failing infrastructures, litter in rivers, canals and Vleis across the catchments, water hyacinth management and mismanagement, City of Cape Town compartmentalized approach to water issues.

Don Kirkwood encouraged us to focus on solutions and success stories, things that are working. In this context the following were mentioned; the Beach Co op at Surfers corner, Muizenberg who for years have engaged in litter clean ups, working with the ‘informal recyclers’ as one way of recycling, buying white or clear plastics rather than coloured ones which can’t be recycled, pushing for the ‘producer pays’ legislation i.r.t litter, finding a champion within the City who you can work with eg Cllr Kevin Southgate at Princess Vlei, using systems thinking as your approach, and hold the City accountable as it now has Ramsar City status, to do more and better with regard to everything ‘water’.

Participants gave positive feedback, and especially enjoyed the opportunity to build networks with other in the field. Most were  keen to attend such gatherings in the future, perhaps twice a year. It may also be useful to structure learning from other experiences by building in case studies from the different sites. In the coming year,  Princess Vlei Forum is very keen to continue hosting these spaces, to enable us to build a strong community conservation sector able to tackle the many challenges of this space, while also enjoying the benefit of each other's insight and experience.  

 The next performance was by Jungle Theatre Company of the Python and the Qunubu tree. This lively performance of  Naledi Tlailane, Mario Matiya,Siyawandisa Badi and Marvin Safoor carried a strong message of the need to listen to and recall ancestral wisdom in caring for the environment and surviving times of drought. The audience watched with delight, especially when some of the audience were called on stage to help the characters with their mission to find the Qunubu tree.

At last it was time for the procession. The learners lined up outside the Civic, undeterred by the wind that was rippling the banners. Walking and jiving to the beat of the djembe drums, they set off through the streets of Sassmeer estate. The bravely held their bird totems, with their messages for a Just Earth, despite the gale buffeting around them. Sassmeer residents came out to enjoy the spectacle. The python from the play joined the procession, along with seven totem poles and three bird puppets. When they reached the vlei, the learners formed a huge circle and joined together in calling for a Just Earth.

in love with nature,
we put our hands in the soil
sand and plants are in our palms:
all indigenous

planting at the vlei and helping at a garden
we want to bring back what was
and what used to be

how are we gonna
live without trees
when they relieve stress from our shoulders?

spread the word:
it is better to live
bring more life to beautiful earth

These are some of the verses created for a group poetry performance as part of the Just Earth project.
The poems were created by Lotus Princess Vlei Guardians in a series of workshops facilitated by Toni Giselle Stuart. Toni is a poet and performer, and part of the Hot Poets collective. Earlier this year she created a poem inspired by Princess Vlei, Great Grandmother Wetland.

The workshops started with a visit to Princess Vlei, where Toni invited the learners to open their minds and senses to what was around them, and write freely whatever came into their minds. In the workshops that followed, they synthesised these thoughts into individual Haikus and poems, then wove these together into a group poem.

At the Just Earth Celebration on October 21,   Paige Eden , Nashiekah Louw,  Deirdre Louw, Zia Booysen, Jade Witbooi, and Tracy Daniels performed individual poems and the collective poem to an audience of about 200 learners, teachers, parents and Princess Vlei Forum volunteers. Toni then compiled the poems into a booklet which was distributed at the school.

The poems beautifully express the sense of calm, freedom and release that these learners feel when visiting Princess Vlei. Together they represent a powerful testimony to the richness Princess Vlei brings to those who visit, and especially those who take the trouble to put their hands in the soil and work to restore its vitality.

Down load the complete anthology of the poems composed by the learners below.

Watch a performance of Toni's poem about Princess Vlei below.

Building Connections
Respect, love, joy, kindness, gratitude, protect, calm, empathy… these are some of the words that learners painted on their t-shirts to honour the creatures at Princess Vlei.
Seventy-five learners from Rosmead, Levana, Harmony and Buck Road Primary came together to paint T-shirts to wear at the Just Earth Procession and Celebration.
Before painting the T-shirts, the learners discussed the meaning of the Just Earth logo, which was printed on the back of the T-shirts. We talked about what a Just Earth might mean for human and non-human species, and why we need social and ecological justice to make the world a kinder and safer place for all. We discussed the significance of the Khoe figure holding up the earth, and how our ancestors taught us lessons of how to live in harmony with nature and each other, many of which have been forgotten.

Learners were invited to choose an animal species which lives at Princess Vlei, and to paint it on their T-shirt. They were also invited to think of a word that they would like to give to that creature. At the end of the day, we had a parade of colourful birds, insects, crustaceans and amphibians to walk with us on the procession.
Creative activities such as this help to forge a strong emotional connection between the children and the species they are depicting on their shirts, while giving learners a sense of empowerment and achievement at their creations.

Even the Principal joined in...
In addition to painting the T-shirts, the learners were also hard at work practicing their dances for the procession. The dances were inspired by the learner’s observations of how creatures move at Princess Vlei. They were choreographed into dance pieces by our talented dancers and movement teachers,  Thimna Stokile and Xoli Fuyani.  In Thimna’s words, ‘When the Principal joins from the back you just know it’s a vibe.’ - this after Ms Charity, Levana Principal, joined the learners as they wriggled like earthworms and hopped like grasshoppers.
Jungle Theatre Company’s Siyawandisa Badi and Marvin Safoor taught learners how to keep time on djembe drums so that they could give the dancers a beat for their jive .

Rhymes for restoration
While the younger Princess Vlei Guardians were painting t-shirts and practicing their dances, fifteen senior guardians came together to create totem poles to carry on the procession.

The poles were topped by bird heads made by learners in previous year’s projects. Each had a pair of totemic wings with a message from the birds to the local community and beyond, and a woven dream-catcher like hoop to represent the web of life. Inside this was painted animal or plant linked to the bird.

The learners brainstormed all the issues facing planet earth, and devised messages to be painted on the wings. Their poetic inclinations came to the fore, as they devised slogans such as Stop pollution and find a solution; We fight for Birds of Light; Stop plastic, be fantastic, Just Earth for its worth, Our goal: no coal, Restore what we adore, Go on a mission to stop carbon emissions, and many others. Fourteen of these were chosen to paint on to the wings. The learners also painted the animal boards and wove the webs.

The end result was seven stunning totems to carry at the procession.

The Just Earth Project is a collaboration between the Forum, Jungle Theatre Company, Peter Clarke Art Centre. Xoli Fuyani and Thimna Stokile provide the dance expertise, and Toni Giselle Stuart the poetry input. The overall project was funded by the City of Cape Town Grant in Aid fund, while certain elements were funded by the Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust, managed by Nedbank Private Wealth.

The heron moves its neck in and out, it moves stealthily to catch its prey… the hawk glides through the air … the grasshopper leaps… the snail slithers ….the bird flaps its wings… the butterfly zigzags

These were some of the observations made by learners at the Just Earth field trips in August and September this year. Seventy-five learners from Levana Primary, Harmony Primary, Buck Road Primary and Rosmead Primary attended the field trips, which launched the Princess Vlei Forum Just Earth programme.  The learners attended the field trips to see how animals and plants could live with balance and harmony, and also to see how the animals moved.

After closely observing the animals, the learners created their own dances inspired by the movement of the animals. They were led by Siyawandisa Badi and Marvin Safoor, who played Djembe drums to bring rhythm, and Xoli Fuyeni who guided the dancing.

The project aims to use dance and creative media to guide learners in exploring the concept of a Just Earth  - just in the sense that it is the only home we have, and also in the sense of a the vision of an earth where relationships between humans and between humans and other species are fair and harmonious.

Observing how the different creatures move at Princess Vlei gave the learners a new observational lens, and also fostered a connection with the creatures as the learners incorporated their movements into their own bodies.

Movement in a beautiful natural area is also uplifting and releases stress that many of these learners carry, despite their young age.

In the coming weeks these movements will be crafted into a dance to celebrate the diversity of creatures living at Princess Vlei. The Just Earth Project is a collaboration between the Forum, Jungle Theatre Company, Peter Clarke Art Centre. Xoli Fuyani and Thimna Stokile provide the dance expertise. The overall project is funded by the City of Cape Town Grant in Aid fund, while certain elements are funded by the Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust, managed by Nedbank Private Wealth.

There was something quite magical at Princess Vlei on 22 July, when over forty friends, family and community volunteers came together to honour the memory of George Davis.

George was a founding member of the Princess Vlei Forum, and had been involved in the Dressing the Princess project to restore indigenous vegetation at Princess Vlei from 2008, four years before before the Forum was launched. He also served on the Forum's management committee for 2 years, and together with Laurence Dworkin created a powerful documentary about the Princess Vlei project. He died in February this year, after a long illness.

Stacey Stent, George's life partner, spoke about George's passionate commitment to the conservation of Princess Vlei, as well as the many other conservation projects that he was involved in. "I have observed a common element in all his work, which was his concern that humans sustain a positive balance with the environment, so that they do not present a threat to biodiversity."

Stacey quoted an interview with George, in which he said, “Humans need to be listened to when they want to live cooperatively with  their environment, and humans who don’t want to need to stand back and listen.”

While it is traditional to plant trees to honour those who have passed on, George was passionate about fynbos - and so it was appropriate that we were planting proteas and watsonias. About 15 species and 500 plants were put in the ground. Amongst these were 25 Aristea dichotima, a plant once flourishing at Princess Vlei but not seen since 1910. This plant will not be seen at Rondevlei or further south, as these vleis are too salty.

Also honoured in the planting was Father John Oliver, who died ten years ago in July 2013.  Like George, Father  John was a founding member of the Princess Vlei Forum, who was instrumental in setting up the organisaiton. He too was passionately committed to saving the Vlei from commercial development.

It was a bright sunny day, a relief after all rain. The planting was greatly enhanced by the beautiful harmonies of volunteers from the Centre for Creative Education, who invited the other planters to join in the chorus of “Stand bright in your corner, where you are.”

George and John both “shone bright in their corners”, and their brightness continues to shine at Princess Vlei. It shines in the plants, birds and insects that flourish in the space where a mall was planned, and in the many children and community members who gather to enjoy the beauty, and to plant and nurture fynbos each year.  We greatly miss them, but their spirit lives on.

By Gary Stewart

It was with great sadness that we heard of Bennie Rabinowitz’s untimely death earlier on this year on May 9. Bennie was a long term supporter of the Princess Vlei Forum and the campaign to stop the all development of the banks of the vlei.
 
He was a man of seeming contradictions, at once being a wealthy property developer, whilst also funding and actively campaigning to preserve numerous treasured public open spaces around Cape Town, including Princess Vlei. Notably, he was Chairperson of Seafront for All (SEAFA) which successfully campaigned to protect the Sea Point Pavilion from commercial development, and also funded the challenge to the Oudekraal development which preserved Muslim burial sites on the Atlantic seaboard.
 
Bennie supported the Princess Vlei campaign in the very early days, in particular providing legal support to challenge the city’s proposal to build the mall. His involvement was an essential driver in keeping the mall development at bay, whilst the campaign mobilised public support, putting political pressure on the city to eventually withdraw the mall development proposal.
 
As a young man he studied at UCT, and was award the very prestigious Rhodes scholarship to do postgraduate study at Oxford. Later in life he would use his affluent position which his education had afforded him to fund a number of students’ pursuit of higher education.
 
He was an early funder of the Weekly Mail, the pre-cursor of today’s Mail and Guardian newspaper, when such activity put him at odds with the dominant Apartheid state. As the society changed, he engaged the local political establishment, being unafraid to challenge them when he thought they went astray.
 
Bennie loved to invite members from his very wide circle of friends and associates to lunches at the Cape Town Press Club, or dinners a good local restaurant, particularly his beloved Mario’s in Green Point, and would happily chat about local gossip, civic issues and also the big social and political issues of the day. He took great pride in his social activism and had an undeniable generosity of spirit.
 
He could so very easily have spent his life in the bubble where many fortunate people find themselves. But he went beyond his comfortable life and actively sought to improve the lives of many around Cape Town in countless ways.

Bennie chose his own path. He chose to fully pursue the opportunities which life had accrued to him and then use his position to better understand the society around him, using the resources at his disposal to actively improve the society in a meaningful way.
 
Bennie’s was a life well lived. He is sorely missed.

‘My name is Ziah Booysen … my experience here was very interesting as I have always wanted to know more about plants.  Ever since I starting coming to Princess Vlei I fell in love with plants… It’s nice to actually learn more about nature.’

Ziah is one of 30 learners from Levana Primary and Lotus High who braved the cold and rain to do planting in our new restoration plot on the Northern shore (Briana Extension). This area of Princess Vlei has the right soil to restore critically endangered Cape Flats Sand Fynbos which is critically endangered because urban development has destroyed most of the areas where it can grow.
   The learners were planting twelve bags of seeds which had been collected and prepared by Alex Lansdowne and his restoration team. The seeds included Protea scolymocephala, Protea Rebens, and mix of annuals. Altogether, about 100 litres of seed were put in the ground. The seeds were protected by branches arranged in circles, called ‘arrays’.
   Restoration consultant Alex Lansdowne explained to the learners: ‘My team and I collected a whole lot of seeds from grasses and proteas and Ericas, and put them in a tent. Then we made a big fire. We took the smoke from the fire and pushed the smoke through a pipe in to the tent. So we tricked the seeds into thinking that there’s a fire. Because fynbos seeds need fire.  If there is no fire, they don’t grow.
    ‘If we plant the seeds now, by December the will be only this big. And in December we will be in the middle a hot and dry summer.  Now imagine if you are a tiny little plant,  and you have those hot dry winds in February, you will die. If you grow plants in your garden you’ll water them in summer, but we can’t water these because they are wild plants. So we are going to help the plant by building a shelter for them called an array… so that next summer, when it is hot and dry, the plants will have a little bit of shade, and if there is a little bit of rain the array will help to catch it
     In all twelve bags there are probably about a million seeds of about twelve different species.’

The learners worked in groups to scatter the seeds, rake them into the soil very carefully to avoid plants that had been planted by other learners on June 2. They then gathered branches and leaves from the eucalyptus trees which had been felled on site to enable restoration, and used these to create the sheltering ‘arrays’.
    Altogether, twelve of these arrays were created by the learners.
   While the Levana students were busy with this, the Lotus High learners gathered  with  Lisakhanya Mathiso and Ruby Sampson from the African Climate Alliance, to learn about the climate and other environmental crises facing us, and how young people can get involved. This is what Ruby and Lisa said about this discussion:
   ‘We started off discussing what the students knew about climate change and environmental issues, and how the climate crisis effects their everyday lives. There was a deep discussion about climate issues and solutions; from flooding in Cape Town because of the recent storms, to the restoration of ecosystems through planting trees and indigenous plants (which they were doing later that day). The group discussed the possibile renewable energy solutions for South Africa; such as solar, wind, water/hydro and even nuclear power.
   ‘We also spoke about the strain that the climate crisis can take on the mental health of young people, with the weight of solving it on their shoulders. After this heavy conversation we all jumped up and began a fun game about gratitude, by sharing the thing that brings them the most joy in life - and we had a good laugh! The session ended in reflection, where the students shared personal experiences, finding strength and comfort in each other.’
    After this session, the Lotus High learners also planted out the seeds and created sheltering arrays for them.
   Huge thanks to the learners and teachers of Levana Primary and Lotus High, the African Climate Alliance, and Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust managed by Nedbank Private Wealth, the Kirstenbosch branch of the Botanical Society and the Botanical Educational trust, for supporting our restoration and educational work.
    Huge thanks also to Gill Palm Taylor of Briana Crescent, who helped us with hot water for the learners' hot chocolate after one of our flasks broke.