Table Mountain celebrates Arbour Week and World Tourism Day
Photo courtesy FoxyCoxy
National Arbour Week was celebrated from September 1 to 7 this year. If you’ve forgotten, or if you weren’t around, Arbour Day was first celebrated in South Africa in 1983 and was extended to National Arbour Week in 1999.
According to the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs, National Arbour Week was established to promote awareness with regard to planting and maintaining indigenous trees, and to highlight the importance of trees in sustainable development.
Every year Arbour Week highlights two trees, one common species and one rare species. This year the common Acacia xanthophloea (fever tree) and the rare Rothmania capensis (Cape gardenia) were celebrated. According to plantzafrica.com, the fever tree can grow up to 25 metres tall and flowers from August to November. The Cape gardenia is an evergreen which can grow up to 20 metres tall in forest area, with its bell-shaped creamy-white flowers appearing from December to February.
World Tourism Day
Also happening this month is World Tourism Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the adoption of the statutes of the United Nations Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) on September 27 1970, and serves to emphasise the importance of tourism on economic, political, cultural and social values.
“Biodiversity” is this year’s World Tourism Day theme. Table Mountain has so much to offer in terms of biodiversity. Not only do we host many creatures on our slopes, but our natural plant life is made up of the Cape Floral Region – the smallest, but richest, floral kingdom on earth.
Both Arbour Week and World Tourism Day reflect the importance of environmentally friendly thinking in the modern age. After all, it is only once we’ve adopted a green way of thinking that we can hope to affect green changes in the world around us.
Cableway keeping it green!
Table Mountain Cableway is currently involved in a number of green initiatives. It is the first tourism attraction in the country to achieve Platinum status from the Heritage Environmental Rating Programme for its environmentally friendly methods. To help save water, chemical toilets were introduced in 1997, and the Table Mountain Café has saved 1 million litres of water during its first year! Also take note that smoking has been restricted to designated areas to help prevent the real danger of fires to the mountain’s natural balance.
Click here to read about how you can keep it green by getting to the Cableway without using your car.
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