Frequently asked questions
Jacaranda ACT works to keep the jacaranda trees that give South Africa's administrative capital its identity, and to make sure that when a historic street tree dies it can lawfully be replaced. These trees have been fought for before, and we build on that record.
How did Pretoria become the Jacaranda City?
The first two jacarandas reached Pretoria in 1888, brought from Cape Town by a travelling nurseryman named Templemann and planted in the garden of Myrtle Lodge in Sunnyside, the home of Japie Celliers. On 16 November 1906, Pretoria's 51st birthday, the seedsman James Clark presented 200 jacaranda trees to the City Council as a gift, planted in Bosman Street in Arcadia. From 1909 the town engineer Frank Jameson set out to line every street with them: about 6,000 stood by 1920 and 17,000 by 1939. By 2003 the city held roughly 33,630 jacaranda street trees, about 17% of all street trees in Tshwane (Stoffberg 2006).
Why do they matter?
A University of Pretoria study put the carbon stored in Tshwane's jacaranda street trees at about 11,438 tonnes. Mature street trees also lift nearby property values and cool the streets, so they are best treated as a managed civic asset rather than a nuisance (Stoffberg 2006; Nowak, Crane and Dwyer 2002).
Why should we keep them?
In 2001 the National Department of Agriculture listed Jacaranda mimosifolia as a Category 3 invader under the Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act. Existing trees could stay, but none could be replaced, so the street population faced a slow decline. The response was public and determined. Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Ronnie Kasrils used Arbor Week in 2001, 2002 and 2003 to defend the trees, and in his 2003 Arbor Week address proposed to Agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza that jacarandas be kept and replaced under controlled conditions inside urban boundaries. Among the campaigners was architect Thomas Honiball, who wrote to the Minister of Agriculture setting out the historical case for continued planting in Tshwane. Those battles were won: the current law exempts urban jacarandas from the invasive rules (IOL 2003).
What is JACARANDA ACT’s ask?
The urban exemption already allows the city trees to be kept and replaced. The remaining risk is the cautious way some municipalities read the law when a street tree must be removed. Jacaranda ACT works with municipalities to confirm in writing that replacing a dead urban street tree is permitted, to align tree removal practice with the exemption, and to keep new plantings out of untransformed and riparian land where the trees remain a real invasive risk.
Where does the law stands now?
Under the 2020 NEMBA lists, jacaranda is Category 1b in Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West, but not listed inside the urban areas of those provinces, and not listed at all in the other provinces. Inside the urban edge the city trees may be kept and replaced. A narrow exemption also covers certain established farm trees: within 50 m of the main farmhouse, over 400 mm diameter at 1 m height when the 2020 Notice was published, and outside riparian areas.
References
Department of Agriculture. 2001. CARA (Act 43 of 1983): Amendment of Regulations. Pretoria: Government Printer.
DFFE. 2020. NEMBA (Act 10 of 2004): Alien and Invasive Species Lists, 2020. Government Gazette No. 43726.
IOL. 2003. Jacarandas: Kasrils Scheming to Halt the Axe. 29 August 2003.
Nowak, D.J., Crane, D.E. and Dwyer, J.F. 2002. Compensatory Value of Urban Trees in the United States. Journal of Arboriculture, 28: 194 to 199.
Stoffberg, G.H. 2006. Growth and carbon sequestration by street trees in the City of Tshwane, South Africa. PhD thesis. University of Pretoria.