Five-day clean-up at Ferndale Bird Sanctuary and Arboretum yields good results
Clean-up operation successfully removes illegally dumped waste, conducts environmental rehabilitation activities and strengthens visible policing and crime prevention efforts in the area.
The final day of the Ferndale Bird Sanctuary and Arboretum multi-entity clean-up showed a visible change in the green space that had been turned into a dumping site.
The five-day clean-up operation brought together city entities, including Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo, Pikitup, Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department, Randburg SAPS, Crum AFSU, private security stakeholders, and community organisations in a united effort to restore and protect one of the city’s important environmental assets.
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The operation aimed to clear illegal dumping, litter, and debris; conduct grass-cutting, tree pruning, and dismantling of illegal structures; and carry out crime-prevention operations and waste removal within the sanctuary.
Day five was also a massive success. The filth was burned, and the broken fence that exposed the greenbelt to pickers and vagrants was repaired.
Ward 104 councillor Emi Koekemoer praised the work done by the entities.
“What five days it has absolutely been. We have driven out truckloads of rubbish. We have broken down every single remnant of a shack inside. The community has really been so crucial in getting this all off the ground, and everybody has just been so generous and so kind and so helpful.”
She added they are going to keep an eye on the greenbelt to make sure pickers do not return. “Beagle Watch has kindly offered to print no trespassing signs so that if it does get invaded again, arrests can be made.
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She urged the community to also be on the lookout and report any suspicious activity.
“If you see something wrong, somebody trying to breach the fence here on Rocky Street, please let us know. Please call either Beagle Watch, your residents’ association or your councillor, and we will respond immediately. But it is going to take a massive effort from all of us to get this place back to what it once was.”
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