African Wildlife & Environment Issue 76 FINAL

REGIONS / BRANCHES / FRIENDS GROUPS

day cutting down Lantanas Lantana camara , PomPoms Campuloclinium macrocephalum , Bugweed Solanum mauritianum and smaller invaders with great success and great satisfaction to the ladies, who love what they do and have become the best of friends. We wish that many more retired people would join us and get the same fulfillment by working away deep in the bushes or grasslands, in such a way that you want to stay here, enjoying the company of other people and seeing the most special insects, flowers and nature at its very best. We do take breaks for tea and to relax! We look after our animals when needed and also do the cleaning-up and repair of our pathways by making use of the cut logs of invader trees that we secure with bent steel spikes, kindly supplied by reinforcing steel people in Silverton to make the pathways safer. Small things like this have been done throughout the years and it makes a big difference.

being out among the trees and near our many buck and ostriches. Our facilities are wheelchair accessible. We offer long walks for the students that can walk with us on our pathways. It makes us humble to be able to care for and help these special persons. In the last few years there were changes as the City of Tshwane’s budget for Nature Conservation was reduced and we ended up with less staff. The Friends of Moreletakloof had to make plans to get more people involved to assist Nature Conservation with the upkeep, as well as the removal of many invader plants and trees. Teams were formed that worked on their own, putting in many hours over the years. The COT put out a tender to cut down thousands of invasive trees in 2018, which also helped, but we still need to keep these areas under control as the BlackWattle Acaciamearnsii , and Australian Blackwood Acacia A. melanoxylon are stubborn invaders to control. We do make use of herbicides to control their growth. In the last years the ladies formed small teams that spend three or more days per week for four to five hours per

Some of the many interest ing di f ferent plant species in the reser ve

30 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 76 (2020)