Help conserve grassland on Melville Koppies
Grasslands are turned to concrete to provide homes, flats and industry to accommodate the expanding city.
Grasslands as can be seen on Melville Koppies are constantly under threat, usually from farmers who want to cultivate them or from people who want to live in sprawling cities.
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Grasslands are turned to concrete to provide homes, flats and industry to accommodate the expanding city.
But grasslands are diverse hotspots and home to a variety of flowers, insects, birds and animals throughout the year.
On Melville Koppies alone, more than 100 different species of flowers can be found in the grasslands.
Grasslands need to be protected because the flowers living there provide food for the insects that farmers need to pollinate their fruit trees and some of their other crops.
The birds live off the flowers and devour the insects while the animals living there eat the insects and the birds- all in a linked food pyramid.
Grasslands have natural threats too.
Fire is not one of them.
Grass and the flowers that they support know how to deal with fire. What they battle to cope with is bush encroachment.
When Melville Koppies chairperson, Wendy Carstens, first started conservation work on Melville Koppies 25 years ago, conserving the grasslands was about chopping out invasive alien species like black wattle, bugweed and ‘garden escapees’ from nearby gardens.
But increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and less frequent and cooler fires that sweep across the Koppies, all favour pioneer indigenous bushes advancing on the grassland.
Once they have a foothold, other seedlings of forest trees are dropped by birds and thrive in the shady environment of the pioneer bush, slowly edging out their grassland neighbours.
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Visit Melville Koppies on a Sunday. Book a guided tour on 079 532 0083 or be there by 8.30am.
Alternatively, get fit on the 5km hike or take a map and meander along the many different paths that criss-cross the Koppies.
Melville Koppies is open between 08:00 and 11:30 every Sunday.
Entry fees are R80 for adults and R40 for children.
All income is used for the maintenance of the Koppies which amounts to R22 000 each month.
Security on the Koppies is provided and visitors can park in secure parking opposite the entrance at Marks Park in Judith Road, Emmarentia.
For more information contact wendavid@mweb.co.za or call 079 532 0083.
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