Table Mountain National Park

Table Mountain National Park
IUCN category II (national park)
Table Mountain seen from the slopes of Lion's Head
Location of the park
Location	Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Coordinates	33°58′00″S 18°25′30″E / 33.96667°S 18.42500°E / -33.96667; 18.42500Coordinates: 33°58′00″S 18°25′30″E / 33.96667°S 18.42500°E / -33.96667; 18.42500
Area	221 km2 (85 sq mi)
Established	19 May 1998
Governing body	South African National Parks
http://www.sanparks.org/parks/table_mountain/

Table Mountain National Park, previously known as the Cape Peninsula National Park, is a national park in Cape Town, South Africa, proclaimed on 29 May 1998, for the purpose of protecting the natural environment of the Table Mountain Chain, and in particular the rare fynbos vegetation. The park is managed by South African National Parks. The property is included as part of the UNESCO Cape Floral Region World Heritage Site.

The park contains two well-known landmarks: Table Mountain, for which the park is named; and the Cape of Good Hope, the most southwestern extremity of Africa.

Arguments for a national park on the Cape Peninsula, centred on Table Mountain, began in earnest in the mid-1930s. The Table Mountain Preservation Board was set up in 1952, and in 1957 its recommendation to the National Monuments Board was accepted and Table Mountain was declared a national monument. In the mid 1960s, the Cape Town City Council declared nature reserves on Table Mountain, Lion's Head, Signal Hill, and Silvermine. Following high fire incidence in the 1970s, Douglas Hey was apponted to assess the ecological state of Table Mountain and the southern Peninsula, and he recommended (1978) that all the Peninsula's mountains above 152m should be conserved. This laid the foundations for the Cape Peninsula Protected Natural Environment (CPPNE) area, finally established in 1989. However, environmental management was still bedeviled by the fragmented nature of land ownership on the Peninsula. Following a big fire above the city bowl in 1991, Attorney General Frank Kahn was appointed to reach consensus on a plan for rationalising management of the CPPNE. In 1995, Prof. Brian Huntley recommended that SANParks be appointed to manage the CPPNE, with an agreement signed in April 1998 to transfer around 39,500 acres to SANParks. On 29 May 1998, then-president Nelson Mandela proclaimed the Cape Peninsula National Park. The park was later renamed to the Table Mountain National Park.

The park runs approximately north-south along the range of mountains that make up the mountainous spine of the Cape Peninsula, from Signal Hill in the north, through Lion's Head, Table Mountain, Constantiaberg, Silvermine, the mountains of the southern Peninsula, terminating at Cape Point.