Growing Nature: Priorities for managing the natural systems on our sites

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@miked @dejayM I was looking for information about Howard Langley and found this interesting article from the Cape.
Another influential role player is Dalton Gibbs. City of Cape Town
A long but interesting article

Some of the many animal species whose habitat we need to protect in our cities. From top to bottom:(see page 120) Cape hare; mountain tortoise; cape dwarf chameleon;
porcupine; spotted genet; eggs
Interesting

Burning of small sites can also be problematic in that rodents
and antelope over-graze regenerating vegetation. For example, at Rondevlei, we patch-burnt a stand of Cliffortia ericaefolia (a very rare and threatened plant) which resulted in thousands of seedling plants emerging. However, Otomys (Vlei Rats) and Grysbok completely destroyed this new population, forcing us to fence off the site and to place plastic collars around the few surviving plants to protect them.

  • howard langley, retired conservation manager
    ’
    Moving on…
    Anyone managing these sites would be forgiven for sometimes feeling overwhelmed. However, these challenges also present tremendous opportunities. And while these problems will probably never be resolved, they can be managed and even turned to our advantage with patience, persistence, extremely creative thinking and, most importantly, strong partnerships
    .
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The kind of thing conservation managers face everywhere and where a detailed understanding of the ecology of the species concerned is very important. For example what is the lifespan of seedbank, do the predators have cycles of abundance in that area, do the plants only need to ‘escape’ on occasion and other times does not matter too much if most of the seedlings eaten.

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Seen and read thanks