Table Mountain National Park, which was previously called the Cape Peninsula National Park, is a national park located in Cape Town, South Africa. It was established on May 29, 1998, to protect the natural environment of the Table Mountain area, especially the rare fynbos vegetation.

The park is managed by South African National Parks (SANParks) and is part of the UNESCO Cape Floral Region World Heritage Site.

The park includes two famous landmarks: Table Mountain, after which the park is named, and the Cape of Good Hope, the farthest point to the southwest in Africa.

History

Arguments for creating a national park on the Cape Peninsula, with Table Mountain at its center, started in the 1930s. In 1952, the Table Mountain Preservation Board was formed. In 1957, the board’s recommendation to the National Monuments Board was accepted, and Table Mountain was declared a national monument.

In the 1960s, the Cape Town City Council created nature reserves on Table Mountain, Lion’s Head, Signal Hill, and Silvermine. After many fires in the 1970s, Douglas Hey was asked to study the environment of Table Mountain and the southern Peninsula. In 1978, he suggested that all mountains on the Peninsula above 152 meters should be protected.

This idea helped create the Cape Peninsula Protected Natural Environment (CPPNE), which was officially established in 1989. However, managing the area was difficult because many different people owned the land.

After a large fire near the city in 1991, Attorney General Frank Kahn was asked to find a way to manage the CPPNE more effectively. In 1995, Prof. Brian Huntley recommended that SANParks be responsible for managing the CPPNE. An agreement was signed in April 1998 to transfer about 39,500 acres to SANParks.

On May 29, 1998, President Nelson Mandela officially declared the Cape Peninsula National Park. Later, the park was renamed the Table Mountain National Park.

Geography

The park stretches from north to south along the main mountain range of the Cape Peninsula, starting at Signal Hill in the north, passing through Lion's Head, Table Mountain, Constantiaberg, Silvermine, and the southern mountains of the Peninsula, ending at Cape Point.

The park is not one single connected area. Most of the natural mountain regions are separated by developed areas in the flatter land. Because of this, the park is divided into three separate parts, as listed below.

The first section includes Signal Hill, Lion's Head, Table Mountain itself, the Back Table (the lower, rear part of the mountain), Devil's Peak, the Twelve Apostles (a group of seventeen peaks along the Atlantic coast), and Orange Kloof (a protected area not open to the public).

This section is next to central Cape Town to the north, Camps Bay and the Atlantic coast to the west, the Southern Suburbs to the east, and Hout Bay to the south.

This section was created from the Table Mountain National Monument, Cecilia Park, and Newlands Forest. Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden is not officially part of the national park, but its higher areas are managed as part of the park.

The second section stretches from northwest to southeast across the Peninsula, from the Atlantic coast to the False Bay coast. It includes Constantiaberg, Steenberg Peak, and the Kalk Bay mountains. It is next to Hout Bay to the northwest, the suburbs of Constantia and Tokai to the northeast, Kalk Bay to the southeast, and Fish Hoek and Noordhoek to the southwest.

This section was formed from the Tokai State Forest and the Silvermine Nature Reserve.

The third section covers the southernmost area of the Cape Peninsula, extending from Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope in the south to Scarborough on the Atlantic coast and Simon's Town on the False Bay coast. It was created from the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve.

Flora

This area is part of the Cape Floristic Region, which is known for having a wide variety of plant life. Many of these plants are rare and found only in this region. Plants such as protea, erica, restio, and species from the Asteraceae family, along with geophytes, grow in large numbers here. The main types of natural vegetation are Peninsula Sandstone Fynbos and Cape Granite Fynbos. Both of these are endangered and found only in the Cape Town area, nowhere else in the world.

Some parts of the park are home to deep, native Afro-temperate forests. A well-known tree in the area is the Silver tree (Leucadendron argenteum). This tree grows naturally only on the slopes of Lion's Head and a few other places on the Cape Peninsula, such as above Kirstenbosch.

The park is located in the heart of the Cape Floral Kingdom, a region with high plant diversity that scientists consider unique. There are more than 2,000 plant species in Table Mountain National Park, more than the entire United Kingdom has. Much of the special plant life around the park has been lost due to farming and city growth.

Native plants are being collected more often for traditional medicines, an activity some people consider illegal. These plants are sometimes sold as remedies in the central business district of Cape Town. Native plants are also threatened by invasive species, including Acacia cyclops, three Hakea species, and non-native pines that were planted in timber plantations on the mountain slopes.

SANParks has faced criticism for removing invasive non-native trees from the park. These alien forests cover only 2% of the park but were once areas with very high biodiversity. Some invasive trees that harm the fynbos region include Port Jackson, Rooikrans, Hakea, Pine, and blue gum.

These invasive trees were first planted as commercial timber plantations after much of the native Afro-montane forests were cut down. However, the lower slopes chosen for these plantations are also where the park has the highest number of unique and endangered plant species.

The park's current plan is to let native forests regrow while gradually removing the invasive tree plantations. This process has caused controversy because some pine plantations are used as recreational areas by people living in wealthy suburbs near the park.

Fauna

Larger predators that once lived in the area include the Cape lion, leopard (which were still there until the 1920s, and some people say their tracks are still found today), as well as spotted hyena and black-backed jackal. Large herbivores also disappeared because of European settlers, such as elephant, black rhinoceros, kudu, eland, mountain zebra, and bontebok. However, the last three species were brought back to the Cape Point section of the park.

Smaller mammals still live in the park, including caracal, rock hyrax, and small antelope species like the Cape grysbok and the recently reintroduced klipspringer.

The Himalayan tahr population began with a pair of animals that escaped from a now-closed zoo on Groot Schuur Estate near Devil's Peak in 1935. By 2006, almost all tahrs had been removed from Table Mountain to make space for the reintroduced klipspringer, which would have competed with the tahr for similar resources. It is likely that a few tahrs still survive.

Chacma baboons live in the southern parts of the park. They are often seen by tourists, but they can become dangerous if they grow used to humans and expect food. People living near the park, such as in Da Gama Park, Tokai, and Scarborough, sometimes have conflicts with baboons that break into homes for food.

Some residents use methods like building electric fences or illegally shooting baboons with pellet guns, running them over, or using dogs to scare them. These actions are not effective because they can hurt the baboons and make them more likely to seek food from human sources, like trash bins, rather than foraging in the mountains. It is important that visitors do not feed the baboons at all.

A rare type of frog, the Table Mountain ghost frog, is only found on Table Mountain. The park is located in the Cape Floral Kingdom, a region with high plant diversity that scientists consider unusual. In fact, there are more than 2,000 plant species in Table Mountain National Park than exist in all of the United Kingdom.

Marine Protected Area

The Table Mountain National Park Marine Protected Area is a marine protected area near the Cape Peninsula. It was created in 2004 under the Marine Living Resources Act, 18 of 1998, as announced in Government Gazette No. 26431.

This protected area helps protect many species that are found only in this region. It is also an important place for tourism, with many recreational diving spots used by local people and visitors. Shark and whale watching, as well as popular surfing areas, are also part of the area. Most of the MPA is a controlled zone where certain activities are allowed with permits, and there are six small areas where no fishing or taking of resources is allowed. The MPA is managed by the Table Mountain National Park.

The marine life in this area is very diverse for its size because two major ocean currents meet near Cape Point. The park covers parts of two coastal marine regions.

The western side of the park, known as the "Atlantic Seaboard," has different types of plants and animals compared to the eastern side, called "False Bay." Both sides are in temperate waters, but the Atlantic side is generally much colder.

The MPA includes culturally important fish traps, old shipwrecks, and traditional fishing communities. It is also important for commercial fishing, including the West Coast rock lobster industry. People who fish for fun, those who rely on fishing for food, and illegal fishing activities that target abalone, rock lobster, and certain fish species also occur in the area.

Tourist attractions

• The Table Mountain Cableway takes visitors from the Lower Cable Station on Kloofnek Road to the top of Table Mountain, helping visitors skip the difficult walk up.
• Boulders Beach, located south of Simon's Town, has a large group of African penguins.
• Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope are beautiful places, but they are not the southernmost point of Africa or where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet, as many people think.