FoBCA wins the National Award for Groups!

The Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA), paid tribute to a wide range of outstanding environmental achievements with the presentation of the organisation’s Annual Awards at the 92nd Annual General Meeting which was hosted by WESSA’s Eastern Cape membership branch at Cape Recife near Port Elizabeth on Saturday 15 September 2018. The WESSA Awards, which have been presented since 1974, enable WESSA to recognise and honour those who have made a significant contribution to the environmental conservation or environmental education sector in South Africa over the past year in an exceptional and sustained manner. The WESSA Group Award was presented to the Friends of Blaauwberg Conservation Area under the leadership of Roy Fuller-Gee.

The Blaauwberg Nature Reserve was awarded the first WESSA Green Coast award in South Africa in September 2018. 

Blaauwberg Nature Reserve was proclaimed a local and provincial nature reserve in 2007. The Reserve has a spectacular view down fynbos slopes, across the city, to seven kilometres of rocky and sandy coastline and the ocean and beyond. The Reserve presents itself as one of the few viewpoints in the world from where you can see two proclaimed world heritage sites, namely Table Mountain and Robben Island. The Reserve effectively conserves critically endangered fauna and flora species, one of which is the African Black Oyster catcher.

Launch of the Blaauwberg Green Coast site on Fri 14 Sep: 

Friday 14 Sep is the official launch of the Blaauwberg Nature Reserve (BBNR) coastal strip as a Green Coast – the first in the country!  
Friends of BCA (FoBCA) members are invited to come and hear all about the project and the benefits it will have for tourism and the environment.  Come and join us for a Bring & Braai.  Please bring your own meat, salads, eating utensils (everything except fire and grid!). Hope to see you there!   

Place: Eerste Steen
Date and Time: Fri 14 Sep from 14h00 onwards.

Remember - members of FoBCA pay no entrance fee to Eerste Steen.

1. Friends' matters

•Being the eyes and ears: People often mention that Friends’ members are the eyes and ears that alert authorities about conservation matters.  A good example of this is a recent event where a member of the public saw road kill on the R27 between Melkbosstrand and Bloubergstrand and thought it looked like ‘an animal with a fluffy tail’.  It was reported to the Chairman of the Friends of BCA, who in turn reported it to the Conservation officer of the Blaauwberg Nature Reserve.  It turned out to be the carcass of a Black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas).  This is a sad, but a very interesting sighting, as the last confirmed sighting of a Black-backed jackal in BBNR was in April 2013 on the Cape Flats Sand Fynbos restoration site, east of Blaauwberg Hill.