Wider ongoing initiative to rehabilitate and actively manage deteriorating coastal dune ecosystems-Table View beachfront management and dune rehabilitation.
Overlooking the world-renowned Table Mountain, Table view beachfront is a 3.5km stretch of seaboard spanning from Dolphin Beach to Bloubergstrand Beach, forming part of a badly degraded dune ecosystem. The dune systems along this coastline no longer functioned naturally and both flora and vegetation have been severely impacted. Indicative of this situation is a marked increase in bare sand and sparse vegetation at the expense of vegetation with a dense cover. Illustrating the degraded nature of the beachfront, plant communities were no longer distinctive, with pioneering species dominating most of the vegetated area. The summer south-easterly winds that blow along the shoreline has moved sand inland for centuries before the coastal road was constructed in the late 1930s. Following the construction of the road, the inland mobile sand was stabilised by planting exotic trees such as Acacia saligna – the Port Jackson willow.
The undertaking of such a large scale rehabilitation of a degraded dune ecosystem required establishing a restoration plan heavily relying on understanding the baseline conditions and nuanced processes at work. After the removal of all the windblown sands that accumulated over the decades, together with the exotic trees, an ecosystem is recreated that resembles the natural state the flora would have been in. This ecosystem will have to be constantly managed due to the natural processes not allowing for reintegration into the natural environment.
