The Kogelberg Mountains are known as the heart of Fynbos and have a floral diversity per unit area that is greater than anywhere else in the world.
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| Kogelberg Mountains |
The Kogelberg Fynbos Sandstone is an endangered vegetation type found in the extreme south of the Western Cape, South Africa. This type of mountain fenbos contains an extremely large number of endangered species, and the large number of plants that are found here are not found anywhere else on Earth. It occurs naturally on the eastern outskirts of Cape Town, east through the Kogelberg Mountains and Hottentot-Holland, all the way to Kleinmond, and is preserved within the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve. This particular vegetation grows in rugged sandstone mountainous terrain. It has been widely planted with commercial invasive pine forest plantations. These trees pose a serious threat to unique and endangered biodiversity and have yet to be completely removed.
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| Kogelberg Mountains |
History
The Aboriginal inhabitants of the Kogelberg Mountains were the San hunter-gatherers and the Khoi herdsmen, whose garbage dumps and burial areas can still be found. During the early colonial era, explorers occasionally penetrated the mountains and reported the unusual beauty of the area and abundant wildlife, however no permanent settlements were established as the landscape was considered too extreme and inaccessible for agriculture. Therefore, the Kogelberg region remained almost pristine. At the beginning of the 19th century, the entire area was designated "Land of the Crown" by the Cape Colony government., and more than a hundred years later, in 1935, the rugged area finally became accessible, when a road was built. This brought about a rapid change, as the Department of Forestry took over the region in 1937 and declared its intention to use the area for state timber plantations.