Wanted: Kom Rep for Baboon Advisory Group

Photo Alan Van Gysen

About 17 volunteers from baboon-affected areas in the Deep South will be required in an advisory and civic oversight capacity to assist the Joint Task Team (JTT), made up of officials from the City, Cape Nature and SANParks, with delivering on its Peninsula Baboon Management strategy.

As the JTT slowly gets into gear to deliver on this baboon management strategy (as mandated by the Department of Forests, Fisheries and the Environment), about 17 representatives are needed to make up the Cape Peninsula Baboon Advisory Group (CPBAG), which will bring a civic and democratic element to the JTT as it attempts to find a happy medium in baboon management planning and application.

Kommetjie has formally and informally been involved in various aspects of baboon / human interaction management over several decades since the culling of a whole troop in 1992. Effectively limiting negative contact between the two species has always been a challenge, a well-documented one with a wide spectrum of differences in perspectives and opinions -- and one fraught with emotion and conflict, and that's between humans before we even get to how to find a happy medium in how we coexist with baboons.

Over the last few years we have had surveys, plays, academic addresses, NGO and civic action, statements from authorities and big meetings aimed at alleviating some of the stresses and harms that have typified such situations in practically every area where our primate ranges meet.

After a protracted and stop-start JTT formation process during which civil society had limited say, the CPBAG was finally formed with communities invited to nominate and propose suitable candidates.

In Kommetjie, aware of the coordinating role that Steve White had been playing in the village, the KRRA approached him about taking on the position. He agreed and a formal nomination was submitted. Recently before any CPBAG formal meetings had taken place, and with Steve’s departure to the Free State it was necessary to find a new candidate.

Brett Glasby, also a long-time Kommetjie resident, with many years of baboon and other wildlife management experience and strong civic credentials, was persuaded to take over from Steve as our CPBAG volunteer.

He (Brett) and KRRA committee members have discussed our Kommetjie draft terms of reference (TOR), the amended version of which will soon be available to anybody who would like a copy. In short the TOR aims to diminish damaging or dangerous interactions between baboons and people in a way that is consistent with the KRRA constitution.

Should there be any concerns about the way in which the Kommetjie CPBAG representative has been selected or appointed these can be discussed at a special general meeting convened with due notice -- or wait until the next annual general meeting scheduled for May 2026 at which time progress of the JTT, the CPBAG and our representative on it can be assessed.

The procedure for calling a special general meeting.

11.2.1 Other General Meetings of KRRA may be convened at any time at the request of:

11.2.2.1 the Executive Committee;

11.2.2.2 the Chairperson; or

11.2.2.3 any ten members of the KRRA in good standing.

11.2.2 Any General Meeting other than the Annual General Meeting shall be convened on not less than 7 days’ notice to all Members entitled to attend General Meetings, and such notice shall state in broad terms the business to be transacted at the Meeting; provided that should the Chairperson, having been requested to give such notice, fail to give it within Three (3) days of the request, the persons requesting the Meeting shall be entitled themselves to give notice of and to convene the Meeting.