 This led to an
unhealthy strain on the indigenous forests of the Southern Cape, which had been exploited since the days of Jan van Riebeeck.Farsighted planning obviously called for the establishment of plantations of fast-growing exotic trees and the necessary trained foresters to manage them.To meet this need, the South African College Schools (SACS) started a course for forest rangers in 1902, but was superseded by the Tokai School for Forest Apprentices in 1912.