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Ekapa - Cape Town's
Lowlands a Global Treasure
Cape Town’s lowland ecosystems are extremely threatened. UWC, situated in
the middle of the Cape Flats for instance, has two of these ecosystems lying
inside and outside of our Cape Flats Nature Reserve, namely endangered Cape
Flats Dune Strandveld within the reserve and critically endangered Cape Flats
Sand Fynbos surrounding the reserve and beneath the new Life Science building.
The threat to these ecosystems comes from urban sprawl together with
degradation of open space by brush cutting, dumping, frequent fires and
invasion by alien species. Education, even at university level, is desperately
needed to help people understand and appreciate the value of the small
surviving patches of these lowland ecosystems. They have incredible value not
only to the citizens of Cape Town but to the world, as these areas contain
many extremely threatened plants and animals that are found nowhere else. For
example, most of the 65 plant species that are found only in the city limits
and threatened with extinction, are found in these patches.
The Botanical Society and the City of Cape Town have partnered to produce
an education resource called “e-Kapa: Cape Town’s Lowlands - A Global
Treasure”. Alice Ashwell, an environmental educator, wrote the material and
Martin Cocks and his team from the International Ocean Institute Southern
Africa at UWC converted the text into a richly illustrated resource. Using the
resource’s comprehensive teacher’s guide with its clear curriculum links,
teachers may teach many types of lessons, not only in biology but in other
subjects such as geography, languages or history. The web-based resource
itself acts as a “library of information” for the lessons and contains
comprehension activities related to the content of each module.
The resource is divided into ten modules which cover all aspects of the
natural history of the Cape Flats. These are:
Nature on your doorstep – setting the background for understanding the
context of Cape Town’s lowlands,
Four unique ecosystems – the four main lowland ecosystems sand fynbos,
strandveld, renosterveld and wetlands,
A brief human history – the history of Cape Town from an environmental
point of view,
Urban nature under pressure – damaging our environment with pollution
and invasive alien species,
Rare, endangered and extinct – endangered plants and animals from Cape
Town’s lowlands,
Conserving nature in the city – nature reserves and conservation
organizations within Cape Town,
Nature and culture – useful plants from Cape Town’s lowlands,
Adapting to the environment – adaptation of plants and animals to fire,
drought, poor soils and water,
Local ecology – all about seed dispersal, pollination, predation and
competition in lowland ecosystems, and
Planting indigenous – how and what to plant in an indigenous, water-wise
garden.
Although the resource, available in English and Afrikaans at this stage, is
aimed at learners in grade 7 - 9, it is certainly very useful to anybody who
wants to know more about the natural environment around them, even the
students and staff at UWC. It is being rolled out to school computer labs in
the Western Cape through the Khanya Project and is also available on CD-ROM
from the City of Cape Town’s Environmental Resource Management Department and
on the web at
http://www.ekapa.ioisa.org.za.
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