Plant xenophobia

As the fire along the coast continues to rage unabated, and with the wind threatening to turn over the weekend and potentially push it back towards the Southern Tip, Margaret et al. have now turned their attention towards the vegetation which is providing fuel for the fire.

It’s well known that some invasive species can burn at hotter temperatures than our local fynbos – which incidentally needs to burn every 15 years or so to survive – and may therefore be partly responsible for the speed and the spread of some fires. And that’s clearly not good.

But there does seem to be some issue with the glossary of terms being used here.

“Dense, inaccessible vegetation”, in which the fire is currently burning does not mean “invasive vegetation”. It just means there’s a lot of vegetation and the firefighters can’t get to it.

The Margarets on the group don’t seem to get that. Apparently, if it’s burning, it must be invasive and someone needs to be prosecuted.

Nor do the terms “alien” and “invasive” the same thing. Alien species are ones that have been introduced to this country from somewhere else. You might also see them described as “exotic”, “non-native” or “non-indigenous”.
We’re supposed to frown upon this sort of thing these days, and so we do.
But what we don’t have to do with alien plants is pull them up remove them simply because they came from somewhere else. I mean, if it’s on your property, you can do that, but you don’t have to.

I recognise that applying this logic to actual humans is a vote-winning policy with some South African political parties, but they are fairly repulsive, and there’s no need to take it out on plants as well.

Unless they are invasive.

Invasive species are ones which expand into and modify ecosystems into which they are been introduced.
This is a really bad thing, and there is legislation to cover this, which quite often does require them to be pulled up and removed.

I fully support this by buying invasive wood to burn on my braai. It’s just one (additional) way I like to help. But while I do my bit, my neighbours just up the road are actively growing a Rooikrans hedge. Maybe they just like to live dangerously.

Apparently, the municipality are coming to town today “to do an inspection” on who’s got what plants on their properties. This is laughable for several reasons. First of all, it’s far too late to do anything about getting rid of invasives ahead of the wind changing direction on Sunday and blowing the fire our way again. Where were the council 3, 6, 12 or 24 months ago?

Secondly, it’s sheer pandering towards concerned residents who will be looking for any scapegoat should there be any fire issues in the village. And lookie here: just before an election, as well.

Who ever would have thought?

And then thirdly, there’s the fact that the areas managed or controlled by two biggest landowners in the vicinity: the municipality and the Agulhas National Park, are both absolutely chock full of invasive – and high fire risk – vegetation. But woe betide you if you have a Rooikrans hedge in your garden.

Actually, no: I’d fully support them on taking that one out.

The worry is that the village is a bit lentil curtainy when it comes to this sort of thing. There are enough militant old hippies living there to go out and just chop for the sake of chopping. I’ve cleared our place of all the invasives, but I do have a shrub on my property which is alien (don’t shoot me, Rupert), but which isn’t invasive and which doesn’t pose a fire risk. But with all the convenient mix up over nomenclature, I half expect it to be gone via a vigilante chainsaw when we next go back.

I will not be happy, but I will know pretty much exactly whose door to knock on.

Let’s hope we don’t have to cross the bridge of the knocking on the door scenario, and let’s hope even more that the current fire is extinguished quickly and safely, with no more damage to the environment or anyone’s property. Or my plant.

Let’s go for a hike!

I touched on the fires rampaging through the Western Cape a few days ago. They’re still burning out of control, despite the best efforts of many hundreds of firefighters, landowners and other stakeholders. Two major ones I’m watching at the moment are the one at Die Dam, and the one between Pringle Bay and Betty’s Bay.

Die Dam has been burning for 3 days now and has spread into two separate fires, one heading west towards Pearly Beach, and one heading east towards Rietfontein. The Suiderstrand group has been alive with chatter about this since it began, especially given the unfortunate incident in the village a few years back. And so I was a bit confused when one of the ladies on the group mentioned that she “could see smoke” from her house.

I mean, yes Margaret. We all can.
That’ll be the absolutely massive fire just up the coast that everyone – including you, Margaret! – has been talking about for the past 72 hours.

Give me strength.

But even Margaret wouldn’t be as daft as some people in the other fire. Sure, you have your “disaster tourists”, the ones who turn up and get in the way of the firefighters by trying to get photos to improve their social media clout, and they’re annoying.

But then there were also messages from the authorities asking people not to hike in the affected areas.

Seriously, who looks at scenes like this as they’re driving through:

And then continues to park in the village, which looks like this:

And then heads off into the veld that looks like this?

Simply adding to the number of people the firefighters have got to look out for or save.

How many poor decisions do you have to take, one after the other, to get to that point?

Really, who needs to be told not to wander into the big, out of control fire?

And yet…

It’s the walking equivalent of the camouflaged cyclists.

Darwin Award nominees, all of them.

Honestly. Let them burn.

Good news on literacy lavels

Ok, so this has been doing the rounds here for a while already, but I’ve just been tardy in getting it onto the blog for the rest of the world to see.

There’s clearly great news when it comes to the recent achievements of South African learners in their exams this year:

Sadly, the people doing the captions at SABC News aren’t the South African learners of this year, and that’s why they’ve spelled “levels” incorrectly.

Now there’s a serious point to make here: I certainly don’t ridicule people because they don’t speak English well. It’s very likely that, with 11 official languages, it’s not their first language.

However, in an organisation as large as SABC News, there will be someone whose first language is English, and there should also be someone whose responsibility it is to make sure that whatever goes on screen is spelled correctly.

And therefore, it’s absolutely fine to take the piss and laugh at this really unfortunate error.

Pixie help in the wind

I’m been an incredibly blowy day in Cape Town and the Western Cape. Sustained 60kph winds with gusts into the mid-80s. The Fire Danger Index was red for most everywhere, and that forecast has proven to be wholly accurate, with fires… well… most everywhere, as well.

I did see one guy “in the know” describe it as “a shit show”. Who am I to argue?

Of particular personal interest above, that one bottom right, which – although a long way from our little place at the Southern Tip – is threatening to head that way. [UPDATE: I’ve just heard that they’ve got it contained.] And also the big one right in the middle, just north-east of Paarl, which has been burning for 8 days now, right around the area where we stayed just before Christmas, including the Bains Kloof Pass, and has consumed an immense amount of land, and sadly, a good number of buildings.

I was trying to glue some stuff to some other stuff earlier, using volatile glue for gluing purposes, and some meths for cleaning purposes. Obviously, I tried to work outside: a well-ventilated area being important, but being on my own, and having no-one to hold the wood, the wind was actually ventilating too much, and playing havoc with my efforts. And so I had to go inside into my office. This was much better, because not only was everything not being blown around, but I was also suddenly joined by an army of helpful pixies who sang and danced as the work got done.

Wonderful stuff. And I really enjoyed the nap that inevitably followed, even if it was on the floor.

Anyway, the pixies might not have helped the firefighters, but the early arrival of the first rain in over two months might give them a hand. I’m back in my car park for the first time this year, and it’s actually rather wet. Ironically, they’re sprinkling water on the grass on the playing fields opposite me.

What’s coming from the sky is not exactly a deluge, but it’s certainly better than nothing, and it’s very welcome. Everywhere is… was… dirty and dusty. Cape Town needed a wash.

As I write, it’s raining heavily, the wind is still blowing and the sun is setting. Trash chickens being blown around in the bizarre sulphureous light, and… is that… is that another pixie?!?

Long way around

If you don’t follow Captain Mark Maguire on the Tikkity Tok, why not?

It’s ok, you don’t have to answer that. But the Irish container ship captain does post some really interesting content about his life and work.

In one of his recent posts, he lamented the fact that he was having to sail “the long way around” Africa due to “the situation in the Red Sea”. But this was on TikTok, so a lot of people didn’t know about the situation in the Red Sea, because they are TikTok users.

So they asked him for some more details. And he replied:

I mean, it is a fairly complex and fluid situation, and I guess that this concise, accurate answer avoids any chance of misunderstanding. His Maersk ship has just passed around Cape Agulhas and is headed for Singapore.

All of the crew are – at the time of writing, and to the best of our knowledge – still alive.