The Cape Flats is a low-lying, flat area situated to the southeast of Cape Town. To the locals the area is known simply as ‘The Flats’. Described by some as ‘apartheid's dumping ground’, from the 1950s the area became home to people the apartheid government designated as non-White. The Group Areas Act and pass laws forced non-white people out of more central urban areas designated for white people and into government-built townships in the Flats. That made living in the area illegal, forcing many people designated as Black and Coloured into informal settlements elsewhere in the Flats. The Flats have since then been home to much of the population of Greater Cape Town.
More recently, entrepreneurs are working to turn the townships into tourist attractions.
Strandveld means “beach scrub” in the Afrikaans language. This vegetation covers and stabilises sand dunes on the beaches around Cape Town, and is incredibly colourful in spring when it bursts into flower. It supports a very high biomass of browsing animals, and in the past it was grazed by large herds.
The strongly alkaline, calcareous dune sand of the coast lies over a base of older limestone. In some places, this limestone juts out of the dune sand, and forms impressive beach cliffs. Succulents form a high proportion of Strandveld plants, consequently, fires are much less common in Strandveld than in the neighbouring Fynbos vegetation.
Cape Flats Dune Strandveld is endangered. More than half of the Cape’s Strandveld has been lost to urbanisation and the building of beach resorts, and only 14 percent of this unique vegetation type is actually conserved.
Of the 11 official languages in South Africa three apply to Cape Town; namely, English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa, however, most people on the Cape Flats, while regarded as Afrikaans speakers, in fact speak what is commonly called ‘Kapie-taal’. Mostly Afrikaans, it includes English, a few isiXhosa words and amongst older people, a few Dutch words. The problem is that how these languages are corrupted and combined to make up Kapie-taal, means that it bears little resemblance to the original languages.
The Flats have a rich and interesting history. There are ‘township’ tours which take visitors into the townships to see the number of memorials of people who died for the struggle against Apartheid. Taking a tour gives visitors the opportunity to see how people live and to eat local food.
"Strandveld" is the rare and endangered vegetation in the Nature Reserves dotted around the Flats. Bring your camera.
