The Natural Environment
Cape Town is defined by its magnificent natural environment, part of the World Heritage–status Cape Floristic Region (CFR) – the richest and smallest of the world’s six floral kingdoms and home to some 8200 plant species, more than three times as many per square kilometre as in the whole of South America.
The Land
Table Mountain’s flat-top shape as we know it today probably first came about 60 million years ago, although the mountain as a whole started forming about 250 million years ago, making it the elder statesman of world mountains. (For comparison, the Alps are only 32 million years old and the Himalayas 40 million years old.)
The types of rock that make up the mountain and the Cape Peninsula are broken into three major geological types. The oldest, dating back 540 million years, is Malmesbury shale – this forms the base of most of the City Bowl and can be seen along the Sea Point shoreline, on Signal Hill and on the lower slopes of Devil’s Peak. It’s fairly soft and weathers easily. The second oldest is the tough Cape granite, which forms the foundation for Table Mountain and can also be seen on Lion’s Head and the boulders at Clifton and Boulders Beaches. The third type of rock is called Table Mountain Sandstone, a combination of sandstone and quartzite.
It’s thought that originally the summit of Table Mountain was a couple of kilometres higher than it is today. Over time this rock was weathered to create the distinctive hollows and oddly shaped rocks found on the mountain’s summit and at Cape Point.
Flora
Fynbos (fine-bos; from the Dutch, meaning ‘fine bush’) thrives in the Cape's nitrogen-poor soil – it’s thought that the plants' fine, leathery leaves improve their odds of survival by discouraging predators. There are three main types of fynbos that you'll come across: proteas (including the king protea, South Africa’s national emblem), ericas (heaths and mosses) and restios (reeds). Examples of fynbos flowers that have been exported to other parts of the world include gladiolus, freesias and daisies.
On Signal Hill and the lower slopes of Devil’s Peak you’ll find renosterbos (literally, ‘rhinoceros bush’), composed predominantly of a grey ericoid shrub and peppered with grasses and geophytes (plants that grow from underground bulbs). In the cool, well-watered ravines on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain you’ll also find small pockets of Afro-montane forest, such as at Orange Kloof, where only 12 entry permits are issued daily.
While the biodiversity of the Cape Peninsula is incredible, it is also threatened. More than 1400 fynbos plants are endangered or vulnerable to extinction; some have minute natural ranges. Most fynbos plants need fire to germinate and flower, but unseasonal and accidental fires can cause great harm. The fires can also burn far longer and more fiercely because of the presence of invasive alien plants, such as the various pines and wattles that also pose a threat because of the vast amounts of water they suck up.
In the wake of the devastating forest fires that swept across the Cape in 2000, Table Mountain National Park and the public works project Working For Water undertook an alien-plant-clearing program to rehabilitate fire-damaged areas and to educate vulnerable communities, such as the townships, about fires. Around 85% of the park’s management area has so far been cleared of alien plants.
Fauna
The animal most closely associated with Table Mountain is the dassie, also known as the rock hyrax. Despite the resemblance to a plump hamster, these small furry animals are – incredibly – distantly related to the elephant. You’ll most likely see dassies sunning themselves on rocks around the upper cableway station.
Among the feral population of introduced fallow deer that roam the lower slopes of Table Mountain (around the Rhodes Memorial) is an animal once regarded as extinct: the quagga. This partially striped zebra was formerly thought to be a distinct species, but DNA obtained from a stuffed quagga in Cape Town’s South African Museum showed it to be a subspecies of the widespread Burchell’s zebra. A breeding program started in 1987 has proved successful in ‘resurrecting’ the quagga. Mammals found at the Cape of Good Hope include eight antelope species, Cape mountain zebras and a troupe of chacma baboons.
The Cape's most famous birds are the African penguins (formerly called jackass penguins for their donkey-like squawk). You’ll find some 3000 of the friendly penguins at Boulders Beach.
Scoring Cape Town's Environment
In 2014, Cape Town scored highly on Siemens' African Green Cities Index (www.siemens.co.za/sustainable-development), and was praised for its comprehensive Energy and Climate Change Action Plan and policies to contain urban sprawl and protect green space. Areas for improvement include having the highest carbon-dioxide emissions per capita from electricity consumption in the index (which covers 15 major African cities), and the second highest generation of waste. That said, the report notes city initiatives to tackle waste generation, including schemes to separate recyclables before collection and an Integrated Waste Exchange program to facilitate the exchange of potentially useful materials.
Marine Life
The seas surrounding the Cape Peninsula host many types of marine life. Southern right and humpback whales, dolphins, Cape fur seals and loggerhead and leatherback turtles are among the species you might be able to spot. One you would hope to not see – unless you're in the safety of a diving cage or on board a boat – is the great white shark.
In order to protect and conserve threatened marine species (such as abalone and west coast rock lobster) that had until recent times flourished in the waters around the Cape, Table Mountain National Park created a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in 2004. Covering around 1000 sq km of waters from Moullie Point to Muizenberg, the MPA includes six 'no-take' zones, where no fishing or extractive activities are allowed.
Creating Table Mountain National Park
The campaign to designate the Cape Point area a nature reserve first got underway in the 1920s, when there was a chance that the land could have been turned over to developers. At the same time, future prime minister General Jan Smuts – a keen hiker – started a public appeal to secure formal protection for Table Mountain; today there's a track on the mountain named after him. The Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve was eventually secured in 1939.
This was the first formal conservation on the Cape, although mining magnate and South African politician Cecil Rhodes had used a small part of his vast fortune to buy up much of the eastern slopes of Table Mountain; he gifted this land, which includes Kirstenbosch and the Cecilia Estate stretching to Constantia Nek, to the public in his will.
In the 1950s the Van Zyl Commission baulked at creating a single controlling authority for the park, but in 1958 all land on Table Mountain above the 152m-contour line was declared a National Monument. The city of Cape Town proclaimed the Table Mountain Nature Reserve in 1963 and the Silvermine Nature Reserve in 1965.
By the 1970s, 14 different bodies were in control of the publicly owned natural areas of the Cape. It wasn’t until 1998 that a single Cape Peninsula National Park became a reality. In 2004 the park was renamed Table Mountain National Park.