Platbos history · History of Platbos
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History of Platbos
History of Platbos
The area has a very interesting political, social and environmental history. Palaeontological evidence abounds of the prehistoric hominins who peopled the coastline. Archeological digs at Plettenberg Bay's Robberg and rock art in the De Vasselot section of the Tsitsikamma National Park indicate that earlier people were what are called strandlopers in South Africa, or beachcombers. By the time European traders and colonisers arrived, in mid-1600's, the people of the Cape were mainly Khoisan and Bantu peoples.
In the 18th century the port town of Knysna became a center of timber trade, which precipitated a woodcutter period of deforestation that saw some of the oldest trees in the forest, especially the yellowwoods, cut down. The forest suffered less damage than might be expected, since the woodcutters were selective about trees, leaving the forest canopy intact, and allowing the saplings to survive.
As the area developed forested areas were occasionally cleared to make way for plantations of exotic trees like pine. Initially the Reserve formed part of the wild Tsitsikamma forest. It was privately owned at the time when South Africa proclaimed the area a protected National Park, and for several decades served as farmland for potatoes and pine plantations. The soil became degraded and the forested parts on Platbos started to dwindle. However, in the late 1990's the property was bought by an environmentally-minded family determined to attempt forest rehabilitation. Thus it became Platbos Reserve.
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Platbos Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.