Please read the City of Cape Town Integrated Development Plan and Budget below and email your feedback to the City by end of day tomorrow.
If you value our wild spaces and biodiversity, please take the time to read the plan HERE, and send comments by the end of the day 30 April. Hopefully this deadline will be extended. Here is an example of a response, this one enunciated by the Cape Peninsula Civil Conservation group:
Whereas there was previously no mention of conservation of Biodiversity in the CCT IDP, the City's over-arching plan, the IDP now references a policy, being the Cape Town Bioregional Plan, and this is welcome and applauded. However, it is very serious that this policy lacks a definition for Biodiversity, and as a result, the document is not fully representative of Biodiversity.
On reading the policy we have noted with concern that the focus is on flora, and there is a significant lack of fauna in the policy document aside from a few seemingly random coastal creatures. Biodiversity has to be comprehensive, taking into account all within ecosystems, or else it is not true biodiversity.
CPCC asks for the Cape Town Bioregional Plan to be amended to be based on a full internationally accepted definition of Biodiversity which includes Flora, Fauna and micro-organisms. Further, whilst this plan is supposed to be updated every 5 years, we were unable to find an updated version. CPCC asks that this updated current Bioregional Plan be made available together with the IDP.
With Table Mountain National Park as an unfenced open access reserve, that functions as a Reserve within a City and a City with a Reserve, we in Cape Town live and work within nature reserve. This region is accorded UNESCO World Heritage status for it's unique floral kingdom and associated fauna should, in a time of global environmental crisis, have conservation as a priority alongside development, with one not necessarily obstructing the other.
Any City initiative should be answerable to Conservation of Biodiversity, whether directly or by offset.
Some of the following are topics the City could consider:
* conservation as a necessary priority alongside development
* uniform densification policy to be adjusted for areas that abut closely with TMNP
* meaningful ongoing and sustained education around Biodiversity for all residents and tourists, including tourist industry, especially in areas which interject or closely abut TMNP, and provision of funding
* buffer zones in environmental / natural heritage areas
* Overlay zoning needs to be applied, to strengthen conservation of biodiversity, and must take into account buffer zones and corridors for the fauna – which includes caracal, leopard toads, mongoose, otters, baboons, and other wildlife.
* fines for allowing repeated access of baboons to home
* waste management to prioritise tamper proof animal proof bins
* Insertion of title conditions in title deeds that stipulate responsibilities of residents to Biodiversity in sensitive areas
* wildlife corridors connecting high lying and low lying land, as well as connecting different wild areas to allow for necessary migration to allow genetic diversity to sustain healthy populations.
Please consider adding these points in your comments to Budget.Comments@capetown.gov.za by 30 April 2024