The following blog was compiled by Nokwethemba Zwane, who was employed as an Environmental Monitor for Apex as part of our Productivity Sampling Project for South African National Parks. She helped monitor invasive alien plant clearing in Table Mountain National Park. This blog represents her insights gathered during her time working on this project.
A deep dive into invasive alien plant clearing in Table Mountain National Park
Apex Conservation Services has recently undertaken a productivity sampling project to monitor invasive alien plant clearing in Table Mountain National Park. I was fortunate to be a part of this project as an environmental monitor. The project officially started in January and ended in March 2025. If I could use one word to explain my experience of this project, I would say “eye-opening”!
Before this project, I was working as an intern at Biodiversity Social Projects. I was mostly focused on invasive alien plant clearing in Table Mountain National Park. I was confident that I had all the necessary knowledge on invasive alien plants. But, imagine if you looked at the inside of a house through a glass wall, and thought that you knew what was inside the house and that you had seen almost everything. Well, it was like that for me and my understanding of invasive alien plant clearing. This project offered me an opportunity to get inside and explore the house, open closets and observe everything happening inside, and see how and why it was happening. I was able to understand invasive alien plant clearing on a much deeper level.
My role in the project
I was part of a group of environmental monitors for Apex, monitoring the teams undertaking invasive alien plant clearing in Table Mountain National Park. We worked with clearing teams all the way from the south, to central and the north of Cape Town. My job was to collect data, recording everything that was happening on a regular day of clearing invasive alien plants. This started from the moment the team got to the site up to when they left.
We had four major methods that we used to collect data:
Detailed Work Method Measurement
This involved observing one of the clearing team members while they were busy clearing, and recording in detail what they were doing. This included information such as:
- the name of the plant
- whether the plant had a single or multi-stem,
- the stem diameter,
- the clearing method applied,
- the tool used,
- the time it took for them to finish treating that one stem,
- if herbicide was used, the type,
- the application type,
- and the amount of time it took to apply the herbicide.
Activity Sampling
This consisted of recording the activity being undertaken by one working member of the clearing team every 30 seconds over a ten-minute interval. This gave an indication of what the team member spent their time on. This included activities such as lopping, consolidating plant biomass, resting, eating or searching for a plant, among many others.
Area Based Productivity Sampling
This involved setting up a block, using several transects to estimate the number of invasive alien plants inside that block. For each transect, the monitors recorded the number of stems of each invasive alien plant species and the age class. After setting up transects, the clearing team started treating the invasive plants inside the block. While they were working, we monitored them and measured how long it took them to finish clearing the invasive alien plants in the block.
Team Activity Sampling
Monitors recorded all major activities in which the majority of the clearing team was involved throughout the day. It included monitoring things such as:
- what time the team arrived at the site,
- the time the team left the site,
- how long it took to walk to the site in the morning and back in the afternoon,
- the time spent on toolbox talks,
- how long the team spent clearing invasive alien plants,
- and the breaks that the team took throughout the day.
What I learnt from this project
This project helped me gain confidence in my knowledge of invasive alien plants and enhanced my skills. I believe that the data we collected is going to help greatly in decision-making when it comes to work methods, and the national norms and standards for invasive alien plant control.
Personally, I love being out in the wild, exploring and discovering new things, and this project allowed me to do exactly that. I had the opportunity to explore different parts of Table Mountain National Park and see many beautiful views and beaches. We worked at Tokai, Cape Point, Glencairn, Deer Park, Newlands, Devil’s Peak and Noordhoek. We also sighted a few animal species, such as Cape dwarf chameleons.
Another interesting part for me was learning and using the scientific names for plants instead of common names. For most of us, scientific names are sometimes rather tricky to master. If you are not careful, you could bite your tongue trying to pronounce the word. This project required me to learn to use scientific names for plants, and let me tell you this: I now have a favourite scientific name! Unbelievable! I know it’s silly, but I love saying Paraserianthes lophantha, which is a stink bean – it is fun to pronounce. All in all, I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to be a part of this meaningful project, to be a part of the fight against invasive alien plants and mostly to learn and to grow career-wise.
Go to our social media pages to learn more about our project in Table Mountain National Park, or to see more about our other exciting projects.
For more information on the services we offer at Apex Conservation Services, visit the rest of our website.