Zandvlei Trust

The Greater Zandvlei Estuary Nature Reserve

A working partnership with the City of Cape Town and The Zandvlei Trust.

Cassy Sheasby                                  Mark Arendse                              Marisa de Kock
Manager                                             Environ. Education Manager           Muizenberg East Manager

Margit van Heerden                      Edward Moses                              Corinna Keup 
Student                                          Foreman                                        International  Volunteer Student
                                                                                                          Read more about her.
                                                                                                           updated 09/02/2010

Contact   Cassy Sheasby    The Manager – Greater Zandvlei Estuary Nature Reserve.

Contact   Mark Arendse      The Manager  – Environmental Education Centre.

Contact   Marisa de Kock   The Manager  – Muizenberg East

Contact  a Staff member

ph/fax     021 701 7542

New open times on the weekend for the public.      updated 09/03/2010

This is the begining of a trial run to gauge the public demand. 
Future dates and times will be published here.

                                                        The entrance gates are open.

Directions to the Zandvlei Nature Reserve (click on the map to enlarge the photo)

See a report from the first open Saturday at the Reserve in December 2009.

Background information

Many people think that the staff working at the Greater Zandvlei Estuary Nature Reserve are Cape Nature employees. Cape Nature is the provincial authority for provincial nature reserves. Zandvlei is a proclaimed local authority nature reserve, meaning it is a City of Cape Town property.
Your rates pay for the infrastructure and the annual running of all the 24 official City of Cape Town Nature Reserves within the Metropole. These reserves fall under the Environmental Resourse Management Department.

Any improvements in capital and operating budgets are dependent on how strong the lobby is for environmental management - finance allocation. The proportion is determined from the 5 year IDP (Intergrated Development Policy) inputs.
The policy is open for annual public comment, on how "our rates should be spent". The formal way is to let your Ward Councillor know your views.  Daily and weekend newspapers advertise for public input when it is up for review. You are encouraged to submit a written reply.

Buy a copy of this quality, informative A5 book with 65 pages, in full colour on environmentally friendly paper from any  ZVT Exco members. . All about the Nature Reserves of Cape Town, for only  R10.
You will be supporting the Nature Reserves.

2009 - 2010 Marine Recreational Activity - Information Brochure.      new 26/01/2010

The brochure is by the Dept of Environmental Affairs.

If you plan to fish, harvest bait, use a cast net in any marine or estuarine area please read this brochure before you do. You do need a permit. The bag sizes and daily limits are listed.

It has plenty of other interesting information as well.

Download the brochure (109KB .pdf)

 The Environmental Resource Management Department pay tribute to Ms Basson.

photograph by Cassy Sheasby

Past students paying tribute to their mentor Ms Basson (2nd row ,seated 8th from left).

On 7th December our Branch had a farewell get together for Ms Basson, the head of the Biodiversity and Conservation department of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology who is retiring from the position in June 2010.

Ms Basson has spent her life teaching conservation and promoting the work that we do in an urban conservation context. A large number of the top conservators in Cape Town have come from the teachings of Ms Basson and are the current and future managers of our remaining ecological treasures.

We had a morning to honour the amazing contribution that Ms Basson has made to conservation and teaching it as a way of life, not just a career, also instilling the strictest conservation ethics and best practice principles. She is passionate about it and became a god mother to most of us, often sharing experiences (good and bad) with her, achievements and lessons learnt from failures.

We all wish her well on her retirement from the CPUT and thank her for the amazing influence that she has had on our lives.

1. In and around the Reserve.   updated 14/03/2010

photograph by David Muller

A group of Youth with a Mission cleaning up the waters edge at Zandvlei..

Click to see whats happening in and around the Reserve.

2. Environmental Education Centre.    updated 09/02/2010

World Wetlands Day was celebrated at the Reserve
from 1st Feb to 5th Feb 2010.

photograph by David Muller

Mark Arendse leading the children around Zandvlei
on World Wetlands Day - 02 Feb 2010.

Click to see more at the EE Centre.

Download this information booklet, for a Mini SASS course or community monitoring water quality.
It is part of the River Health for Southern Africa.

1. Fay's Karoo Robin project.                          1. Andrew's Kedstes Butterfly project.

2. Fay's  Waxberry (Morella Cordifolia)          2. Andrew's  Healing Plant Poster project 
   rehabilitation project.

1. Cassy's African Catfish project.

Click to read the Cape Bird Club's history at Zandvlei.

A bird count record from an April 1994 Zandvlei Trust Newsletter.

photograph by Rosemary Barson

African Openbill Stork (Anastomus lamelligerus).

Do you know?

You can contribute to;

• the BIRP (Birds in Reserves Project) run by ADU (Animal Demographic Unit) (link above on icon) based at the University of Cape Town.
• By doing so you as a "citizen scientist" are helping to establish local and national species information and contribute to bird conservation.
• The process is fairly simple; volunteers go out to any PA (protected area - Greater Zandvlei Estuary Nature Reserve) and simply make a list of all the bird species observed. Data can be collected up to a maximum of seven days.

Please start at Zandvlei and record all the birds you see and submit them via the data gathering process. For more information go the the BIRP website, as above. Please download the BIRP instruction booklet which contains all the relevant information pertaining to this project.

The project is supported and endorsed by both the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) as well as BirdLife South Africa (BLSA). Click on the logos for the links.

Marius Wheeler  is the Project Co-ordinator. tel 021 650 4698.

Data

The following tables / records are published on a regular basis, so as to build up a central source of data. This will assist anyone who is interested in Zandvlei;