Report damaging Alberts Farm fires
ALBERTS FARM – Recent fires in the park have raised serious concerns.
A few more years of uncontrolled burning and there might be nothing of environmental value left to save in Alberts Farm.
This is the concern raised by Friends of Alberts Farm Conservancy chairperson, Julie Gouws, who was accompanied by Ward 86 councillor, Philip Kruger to the park to assess the damage by recent fires that swept through the municipal park.
The fires started earlier than usual this year and this concerns Gouws and Kruger even more as it seems they are deliberately started by members of the community.
“The indigenous plants will struggle to grow and alien invasives [which are more fire resistant] will take over. The risk is if there is burning early on in the season, the green shoots come out but they turn brown again. They might be subject to a second burn later in the dry season,” Gouws said.
The Friends and City of Johannesburg’s City Parks wish to set in place an agreement based on an environmental management plan for Alberts Farm that aims to turn the park into an urban conservancy. Its unique biodiversity, fresh water spring, wetlands and rocky ridges can better be preserved and protected if made an urban conservancy where the community takes pride in managing the park with the City. But with continuous fires, Gouws and Kruger fear the worst.
The wetland has totally burned this year and a section of it was subjected to a slow, hot burn which lasted for a long time, meaning the roots of plants were destroyed and only bare ground patches remain.
“That is what happens when it is a long hot fire, and not a ‘cool’ fast one that only burns the top of the plants,” said Gouws. The Environmental Management Plan for Alberts Farm allows for fast ‘cool’ controlled burns, which Gouws agrees must happen in predertermined cycles.
Gouws added that going forward she hoped to see more community involvement, educational programmes and the agreement with the City regarding the public private partnership of the park.
She suspected that some fires were started by schoolchildren and others by over-zealous community members concerned about security as well as religious groups that perform rituals with fire.
If you see a fire in any park close to you and you suspect it is not controlled, contact the City’s fire department on 011 375 5911 or 10177 or the Joburg City Parks and Zoo Conservation team’s 24-hour number on 011 760 9143 or 071 220 3696 (Phillip) or 082 344 2407 (Moses).
On 22 and 23 July from 9am you can join the grassland and wetland clean-up in Alberts Farm.
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