Fiery debate over alien vegetation on private Cape estates

He apparently loves pine trees because they remind him of his native Scotland. But a British lord's wooded estate on the slopes of Chapman's Peak in Cape Town proved a soft target for this week's devastating wildfires, which turned the leafy wonderland into an inferno.

Irvine Laidlaw and his neighbours in the exclusive De Goede Hoop estate have clung to their pine trees despite repeated warnings that they pose a serious fire risk on the border of Table Mountain National Park. However, there was no protecting the pines from the wave of fire this week.

Laidlaw's manor house, which he bought several years ago together with a large chunk of mountainside for R107-million, narrowly avoided going up in smoke.

Described as an intensely private man, Laidlaw, 72, has kept a particularly low profile since a series of stinging articles about his "sex addiction" several years ago. In 2008, he booked himself into a South African sex addiction clinic.

Although the smoke has cleared, the Cape Town fires have ignited a simmering row over "hazardous" alien vegetation, much of it growing on private land out of reach of the government's alien-clearing programme.

Noordhoek and Tokai, two of the worst-affected areas this week, have pine infestations, as well as other invasive alien species such as Port Jackson and rooikrans.

Table Mountain National Park manager Paddy Gordon said such trees were a major fire hazard because they created fire pathways through the slower-burning natural vegetation.

"We've raised the issue with them [De Goede Hoop]," Gordon said this week.

In a conservation alert sent in January by well-known naturalist and author William Liltved, Noordhoek landowners flanking the mountain were warned to ensure their properties were cleared.

"The combustible fuel load (especially alien vegetation biomass) has steadily increased in our area.

"We are thus again under significant threat from fire," he said, adding that the Noordhoek valley appeared not to have learnt from the devastating fires 15 years ago when much of the peninsula burnt.

Laidlaw did not respond to Sunday Times queries this week, but an estate manager, Richard Gunston, dismissed questions about the pines as a "witch-hunt".

He said the estate was actively clearing alien vegetation: "We will continue to fight aliens as we always have and do positive things. Our firebreaks were a huge success."

Grapevines were also affected, including those at Cape Point Vineyards, where up to a quarter of this year's harvest was still on the vine .

Co-owner Lizanne van der Spuy said: "We were joking and saying we might have to produce a wine called 'Fireman's Blend'."