The shot-hole borer is ravaging Cape Town’s trees from within, while bark-strippers attack from without.
A tree infested by the shot-hole borer beetle and the fungus Fusarium euwallaceae . Picture: Stellenbosch University
The City of Cape Town has begun a social media campaign to inform residents. About 260 infested trees have been identified in the southern suburbs, according to mayoral committee member Patricia van der Ross. The number is increasing daily. Infected trees can contain more than 100,000 beetles. “Civil society needs to get behind this. People often realise the severity of what they are facing when it’s too late.
Krige’s work includes tree management in Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and he is the chair of Friends of the Arderne Gardens. The Arderne Gardens in Claremont, which have one of the most diverse and valuable collections of exotic trees in Africa, are home to what Krige considers “the most iconic tree in Cape Town”, a towering Moreton Bay fig that has been a backdrop for wedding photographs for many decades.
The Table Mountain National Park has an “integrated strategy” to combat the stripping of bark, which traditional healers use for a variety of ailments. The strategy includes intelligence gathering, law enforcement and “proactive solutions” such as painting mature and seed-producing trees with grey, water-based PVA paint, to make the bark less attractive for consumption.
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