In This Issue:

Captains Run

Fynbos Forum

EE Stats

Greening the

Future

Floating

Wetlands

Happy Holidays

Arbor Week

Big Cleanup

2017

Funding

Announcement

Kenilworth Flora

Preserving the

Princess

New Site

Manager

Caught on

Camera

TMF Small Grant

Facility

Training &

Development

Captains Run

A training run was hosted at False Bay Nature Reserve on Monday morning, 21 August, by the City of Cape Town and Birdlife SA. Braving the chilly weather, Francois Pienaar and Elana Meyer led a group of dedicated runners around the 10km route from the False Bay Nature Reserve Headquarters along the shores of Zeekoevlei and through the Strandfontein birding area. Dale Wright presented to the South African icons on the role CTEET is playing in offering these opportunities to Cape Town’s youth. Kashiefa Anthony and Grant Revell, who are both successful graduates of CTEET development programmes spoke about how their involvement with CTEET and the City of Cape Town has changed their lives. After the presentation Francois Pienaar said “it’s amazing to hear these stories, we’ve heard how these programmes are changing lives, and we would love to find a way to support these initiatives.”

Fynbos Forum This year the annual Fynbos Forum was held at the Swellendam Showgrounds and we were proud to be represented by five CTEET staff. Petro Botha, Project Manager of the Gantouw Project said that “Fynbos Forum 2017 was an unforgettable experience: making contact with people in the conservation field, gaining knowledge, experiencing the Haarwegskloof Renosterveld Reserve and having fun with colleagues.” Training and Development Manager Louise Matschke won Best Presenta-tion Runner Up (Open Section) for her talk on “Changing Lives Through Nature; the CTEET crèche to career model explained”. Her presentation took a thought-provoking look at how our current lifestyles are resulting in an alienation from nature and how CTEET has a multi-faceted approach to changing lives through nature.

EE Stats this Quarter Day Programmes: 12

Overnight Camps: 15

Number of Children Involved: 849

Andrea Von Gunten, Petro Botha, Louise Matschke and Louis Van Wyk at the Fynbos Forum

Francois Pienaar learning about Changing Lives Through Nature

Newsletter Vol. 9 | Jul - Sep 2017

THE QUARTERLY BUZZ

“I learnt how to work as a team and how important animals are!” - Sarah, Cape Town High School

Floating Wetlands We spent a wonderful afternoon with the Somerset College Eco-Club to help them build floating wetlands for their school dam. Floating wetlands are an innovative way to improve the water quality of man-made dams. They also provide a habitat for birds, insects and fish. The first step in building the wetland is to construct the bamboo frame to support the plants. After that, the bamboo is covered with coconut matting and wrapped with hessian. Small holes are then made in the hessian and the plants are inserted into the floating wetland. The most exciting part of the afternoon was definitely launching the wetlands, with a moment or two of worry that they wouldn’t float! Special thanks to Richard Burns of the Invasive Species Unit for all his help and to Arno from Maccaferri Africa for their donation of materials.

Happy Holidays

During the June/July school holidays, CTEET hosted a 4-day Changing Lives Through Nature holiday programme for children from the surround-ing Grassy Park Area. The programme was planned to keep children occupied during the holidays while also teaching them about a variety of environmental topics in a fun and interactive way. The children learnt about the dangers of poaching in the ‘animals vs poachers game’ and discovered some of Cape Town’s amazing biodiversity during a snake show. Craft time was enjoyed, making use of waste items to create animals with special features for protection from poachers! The children were also shown how to play a number of indigenous games. On Mandela Day, the children learnt about alien invasives species, the threat they pose to our local plants and animals and why we need to protect nature. They then put in their 67 minutes of clearing alien invasives species from Rondevlei, alongside the CTEET camp facilities in Zeekoevlei.

Pulling out invasive species!

Greening the Future We are honoured to have won the Mail & Guardian Newspaper’s “Greening the Future Award” for Youth Leadership, for Our Conservation Leadership Programme.

The Mail & Guardian explains that “the current generation of leaders and decision-makers are hand-ing over a polluted world with rising carbon levels. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for the youth, who need to stand up and become the climate leaders of tomorrow.” We are extremely proud of our young conservation champions and can’t wait to see what their futures hold!

Left: The floating wetland in the school dam. Right: Educator Anwar Boonzaaier helping with the frames.

Arbor Week

To celebrate National Arbor Week 2017, our Eco-Schools team visited 10 local schools to give environmental presentations and to plant trees. The 50 trees, along with Arbor posters were donated by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and

Fisheries. The various trees that were planted included White Karee, Tree fuschia, Sand olive, and Brush Cherry trees. Most schools held whole-school assemblies about Arbor week before planting their trees. The Strand-fontein Eco-Club learners showed off posters and

recited their own poems. One of the poem stanzas was; “Big trees small trees, they all play their part, they all have a place in all of our hearts, lets clap our hands and scream hip hip hooray. Celebrate the trees because, it’s Arbor Day!” Gretchen Collins, our Eco-School Node Coordinator said “the week was amazing, and filled with practical learning. The learners were excited and have a new appreciation for trees and forests.”

Big Cleanup 2017 The 16 September 2017 was International Coastal Cleanup Day and we teamed up with WESSA, Eco-Schools, Blue Flag Tourism, Let’s Do It Africa and the Getaway Magazine to host a cleanup at Sunrise Circle, Muizenberg. The CTEET Cleanup team was made up of 20 Village Heights Eco-Buddies and 17 of our Conservation Leadership Programme learners, staff members and volunteers. Everyone braved the chilly weather and strong winds to put in their best efforts along the beach.

The cleanup kicked off with an inspirational message from Karen Merrett, our Education Programme Coordinator followed by a talk on ‘Threats to Marine Life’ by the WESSA Beach Stewards. Everyone then split into smaller groups of 4 – 5 people with their gloves, bags and data sheets and moved onto the beach. It really hit home how much of our unnecessary plastic ends up in the sea, and how we can make a difference in by picking up simple habits such as refusing straws.

Harmony Primary School pupils planting trees at their school.

Cleaning up the Sunrise Circle beach!

Funding Announcement

We are very pleased to announce that we have received funding from the National Lotteries Commission (NLC). These funds will be used in many aspects of our ‘Changing Lives Through Nature’ campaign including camp sponsorship, Eco-Schools support, transport

sponsorship and support of the Conservation Leadership Programme We would not be able to run the incredible environmental education programmes or training and development initiatives were it not for the generous support of our donors and we thank NLC for their backing.

Preserving the Princess Princess Vlei is the gateway to the wetland sys-tem that runs through Grassy Park, purifying the water before it runs into the sea. This is a site with unique socio-environmental value and was until recently under threat of the development of a shopping mall. The Princess Vlei Forum is a non-profit organisation working to ensure the ongoing conservation of the Greater Princess Vlei Conservation Area. CTEET is working with the Princess Vlei Forum to protect and conserve Princess Vlei. In September Denisha Anand was appointed through CTEET as the Site Manager, based at the Princess Vlei Eco-Centre. Welcome to the team Denisha! The Princess Vlei ‘Flight of Dreams’ Parade was a great opportunity to kick off our involvement with the vlei. Our educators took the stage at the concert to perform the story of ‘Drippy’, showing children how important water is to the environ-ment. The day was attended by local schools and community members, and was a fun and colourful celebration of Princess Vlei!

Kenilworth Flora

The Kenilworth team has discovered various new flora species in the Kenilworth Racecourse Conser-vation Area (KRCA) since the end of last year. An ecological burn conducted in 2015 unearthed several threatened flora jewels, approximately one to two years after the ecological burns were conducted on the site. In May, the team rediscovered Macrostylis villosa subsp. Villosa, an Endangered species, which is found only from the Cape Peninsula to Mamre. Herbarium records of Elsie Elizabeth Esterhuysen, “the most outstanding collector ever of South African flora” who amassed 36,000 herbarium specimens, suggest that this species may have last been recorded at Kenilworth Racecourse in 1965. This is legendary as Elsie would have been 53 when she found it at Kenilworth and now exactly 52 years later the species again shows its floral majesty.

Other threatened species emerging after the burn are Lebeckia meyeriana (Endangered), Aspalathus araneosa (Vulnerable), Moraea elsiae (Vulnerable), Lampranthus leptaleon (Endangered). Kenilworth Racecourse conservation management is delighted to have found these species and the discovery strengthens the importance of actively conserving one of the most valuable pieces of Cape Flats Sand Fynbos remaining.

The ‘Flight of Dreams’ Parade

New Site Manager

The management of the Zoarvlei Section of Table Bay Nature Reserve has recently been added to the CTEET Nature Care Fund portfolio. Reward Nzuza was appointed as the Site Manager of the area in June after completing the CTEET internship programme. The Zoarvlei Wetlands form a 140 ha section of Table Bay Nature Reserve. The wetlands are situated between the Paarden Eiland Industrial Centre and the suburbs of Rugby and Brooklyn. The position of the wetlands result in a number of challenges such as the industrial storm drains feeding waste and pollution into the wetlands, illegal dumping from the neighbouring communi-ties and illegal occupancy by displaced individuals. Another big challenge is the clearing of alien invasive species from the site on which Cape Flats Strandveld should be present. Progress has already been made on site by Reward, who has been able to remove the illegal structures, clear rubbish and a number of alien species. We look forward to seeing the improvement on site in the future and welcome Reward to the CTEET team.

Macrostylis villosa subsp. Villosa and Lampranthus leptaleon (Credit: Sabelo Memani).

Site Manager, Reward Nzuza

TMF Small Grant Facility CTEET has been ap-pointed as a facility to issue small grants on behalf of the Table Mountain Fund.

This latest addition to the Nature Care Fund will focus on working with communities around the natural areas in Cape Town. This project aims to create a greater awareness, strengthen leader-ship roles, capacitate youth, and grow and devel-op new entrants into the conservation space with the long term focus on the new entrants venturing into the Green Economy. We are very excited to be one of these facilities and look forward to working with inspiring organi-sations to change lives through nature!

Caught on Camera Following the discovery of grass and common carp carcasses in and around the detention ponds on the Atlantic Beach Golf Course Conservation Area, Site Manager Louis Van Wyk decided to investigate by monitoring the area with camera traps. He initially thought a Cape clawless otter might be preying on the fish; how-ever the camera trap footage revealed a water mongoose to be the probable predator taking up residence on site. Interestingly the fish were killed, but did not display much harm or preying activity on the carcasses. This is the first evidence of a water mongoose on site. They have a more diverse diet, including substantially larger prey, than the common small grey

mongoose.

Find these stories & more on: ChangingLivesThroughNature

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Training & Development Our Training and Development team is being kept busy with the young conservationists on the programme. Currently we are mentoring and training: 20 Nature Conservation

Interns 25 Environmental

Learnership participants 6 Skills Development

learners A highlight for the learnership participants was the recent chainsaw and brush cutter training. Many of the learners and the interns have had the opportunity to get involved with planned ecological burns on their nature reserves. These are very valuable skills as they move forward with their careers in conservation. On 21 September, the learners went on an excur-sion to the Invasive Species Unit at Westlake Conservation Centre. Sisanda Nuse presented on alien invasive species and the purpose of the bio-control facility. Invasive Species staff took the learners to see the bio-control area where the they were introduced to some of the bio-control agents collected and bred at this facility. The learners were amazed at the work done and the significance of bio-control within our eco-systems.

Justine Swartz during the chain-saw training

Left: Camera trap footage of a water mongoose. Right: Common carp carcasses found on site.

Top: Siphokazi Atoli telling the learners more about Kariba Weed and the Cyrtobagous Weevil .

Bottom: Helping with an ecological burn.