From 17th to 19th July 2026, a group of 15 volunteers worked for over 9 hours pp, with the main objective of pushing back the pine tree invasion on the ridges above the MCSA hut on Cape Nature land. The target area covered medium to steep mountain slopes, a river corridor as well as a gently sloping fynbos ridge and was directly above (in a south west direction) the hack area covered over the weekend 8-9 May 2026.
The area had last burned about 4 to 5 years ago. It was likely that, as a result of this fire, thousands of seeds were released from mature (20 to 30 year old) trees and germinated in the relatively fertile and moist soils on the fynbos slope.
The area is/was infested mainly with pine trees, Pinus pinaster, varying in size from new growth to tall trees.
In total the group sorted out (cut down, Ringed, or pulled out) about 4600 trees. This achievement was far less than that of the 08 May weekend. This is because we needed to work more carefully to cut the baby pines below the side branches which grow just above the ground. This time we were working on a silghtly steeper and much more rocky terrain which contributed to the lower final count.
Three youngsters were taught to use chainsaws safely by Alistair and Jake. A total of 3 chainsaws were used and a good tally of 270 large trees were dealt with (80 were cut down and 190 were “ringed”. “Ringing” involves cutting an annular cut into the trunk at a height of about 1 meter above the ground. See Figure 1 for Ringing process.)
Read the full – and fascinating – report here.
