1687 |
| The first "placaat" (notice) is issued by the Dutch East India company with prescribed penalties for anyone caught setting the mountain on fire to promote grazing |
1929 |
| The Wildlife Society moots the idea of Table Mountain being declared a National Park. |
1938 |
| Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve proclaimed |
1958 |
| National Monuments Council proclaims Table Mountain a natural and historical monument. |
1964 |
| Table Mountain Nature Reserve is proclaimed |
1964 |
| Silvermine Nature Reserve proclaimed |
1974 |
| The Mountain Club of SA publishes a report warning that the condition of Table Mountain is deteriorating. |
1976 |
| UCT scientists call for the urgent implementation of a scientifically-based management plan for the whole mountain chain, urging that a single authority should own and control the natural areas of the mountain chain. |
1978 |
| Douglas Hey, appointed to investigate the status of the mountain, recommends that the protected area be extended throughout the Peninsula and that a uniform management policy be applied. |
1983 |
| Dr Hey’s recommendations give rise to the proclamation of the Cape Peninsula Nature Area (CPNA) which later becomes the Cape Peninsula Protected Natural Environment (CPPNE). |
1995 |
| The Huntley Committee, headed by National Botanical Institute chief Brian Huntley, is appointed to recommend a single statutory authority and legal framework for the future management of the CPPNE. The Huntley Committee recommends that the SA National Parks be entrusted as the single management authority responsible for the conservation of the CPPNE. |
1996 |
| SA National Parks sets up a Table Mountain Project team to establish a new national park in the Cape Peninsula based on the CPPNE. National Cabinet approves appointment of SA National Parks to manage Peninsula’s natural area. Western Cape Cabinet approves the appointment of SANP. |
1997 |
| Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Pallo Jordan appoints the Cape Peninsula National Park advisory committee, headed by Professor Huntley. |
1998 |
| SA National Parks signs agreement with local authorities – South Peninsula Municipality, Cape Town City Council and Cape Metropolitan Council – paving the way for formal proclamation of the park. The first portions of land are proclaimed on May 29 1998 as a contractual National park. |
The Cape Peninsula has a long and eventful history. Prehistoric people first left their mark here more than 600,000 years ago and traces of the tools of these Early Stone Age hunter-gatherers have been found in a wind-scoured depression near the Cape of Good Hope. The Middle Stone Age inhabitants (dating from 200,000 to 40,000 years ago) also left evidence of their life on the Peninsula. There are about six sites where artefacts, including scrapers and fragments of worked stone, dating from this period have been found and more than a 100 sites where signs of Late Stone Age habitation (from about 21,000 years ago) is evident. The San (or Bushmen) hunter-gatherers relied on the seashore for most of their food and are known colloquially as the strandlopers or beachwalkers.
On April 6, 1652, the Dutchman, Jan van Riebeeck, stepped ashore at Table Bay tasked with establishing a refreshment station for the Dutch East India Company and their ships that sailed the route to the Dutch East Indies. 
CyberCapeTown.com
