Documents

Biophilia Assessment for School Learners

The Greenpop Foundation
The following assessment has been designed by The Greenpop Foundation for the purpose of determining the psychosocial impacts of urban greening projects conducted at schools in Cape Town.
The assessment consists of a 2-part questionnaire which aims to assess learners' contact with nature and their levels of biophilia (love of nature) and biophobia (fear of nature).

Common Garden Birds

Ingcungcu Sunbird Restoration and Cape Bird Club
An overview including photos of Cape Town's common garden birds.

Fynbos stepping-stone corridor strategy

Nadine van Zyl and Frances Taylor
A community-focused strategy to increase socio-ecological connectivity in Cape Town. This strategy takes you from the basics of understanding what Fynbos is to prioritising where to work. It includes a step-by-step guide towards rehabilitation of stepping-stone gardens.

Guidelines for Restoring Lowland Sand Fynbos Ecosystems

Holmes, P.M., Esler, K.J., Geerts, S., Ngwenya, D.K., Rebelo, A.G., Dorse, C., van der Merwe, J., Retief, K., Hall, S.W., Grey, P., Nsikani, MM.
As global efforts to up-scale restorative activities emerge under the UN Decade for Ecological Restoration, a team of South African collaborators has focused ongoing efforts on restoring Lowland Sand Fynbos ecosystems, which are amongst the most threatened habitats in South Africa.

To this end, their collective knowledge and experience has now been collated into ‘Guidelines for Restoring Lowland Sand Fynbos Ecosystems’. This document aims to assist managers and landowners of degraded Sand Fynbos vegetation to restore biodiversity and contribute to the conservation of these threatened ecosystems. The document leads readers through a description of this critically threatened habitat, providing information on planning and execution of restorative actions, including a norms calculator for alien tree clearing, legal and policy imperatives, in-field protocols, and monitoring. There is a section on troubleshooting challenges, and useful information on seed processing, plans of operation and cost-calculating. The hope is that these practical guidelines will pave the way for Cape Lowland Fynbos to flourish and to help inspire similar efforts elsewhere.

Funding from the Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust, to support the development of the guidelines, is gratefully acknowledged.

Guidelines for Working with Schools

The Greenpop Foundation
The following guidelines were developed by The Greenpop Foundation for the purpose of facilitating successful urban greening projects at schools in Cape Town.

How to Run a Volunteer Greening Day

The Greenpop Foundation
Community mobilisation is the backbone of many greening projects. Whether you are planting trees, creating urban gardens, building food gardens, or even hacking alien invasive vegetation, having local volunteer participation increases community ownership and reduces the time and effort required to reach your greening goals. As they say, many hands make light work.

However, not all volunteer days are created equal. After running hundreds of community greening days over the last 12 years, the Greenpop Foundation has compiled this guide to running engaging, inspiring and impactful volunteer days.

Making a Fynbos Stepping-Stone garden - A framework to Guide Your Fynbos Gardening Process

Sjirk Geerts and Frances Taylor

Natural Sciences and Technology Curriculum Supplement

The Greenpop Foundation
These lessons are designed to stimulate the use of the fynbos gardens (or any outside area on the school grounds) as a teaching tool. There are four lessons per year (one per term) for each of the grades (grades 4 to 7).