Welcome to the Afromontane Research Unit:
A continental leader in African mountain research

Despite the challenges of 2020 relating to COVID-19, the Afromontane Research Unit (ARU), University of the Free State (UFS), has possibly had its best year since it was founded in 2015 – confirming its role as the flagship research group of the Qwaqwa Campus (UFS-QQ), as a strategic research hub at the UFS, and as a continental leader in African mountain research … Read more

ARU-related news articles:

• Award recognises Alexandra Howard's work on the value of bats on apple farms
• ARU's publication in a prestigious journal 
• From dream to reality: Indigenous university botanical garden for UFS Qwaqwa Campus
• Informing the Future for a Sustainable African Mountain City
• National Global Change Conference features ARU in top-three oral presentations
• Swiss Ambassador visits Qwaqwa Campus to boost mountain research
• Landscape change studies bring better understanding of climate change
• ARU collaborations a game changer for mountain research in Southern Africa (bult news magazine 2022 #1 - page 38 & 39)
  

• Solutions for ongoing water problem (bult news magazine 2022 #1 - page 28)
  

• Helicopter tender takes ARU to the skies for mountain research
• Trans-local collaboration enriching the lives of social entrepreneurs in rural communities
• From Cathedral Peak to your tap: the role of mountains in providing water
• When illegal wildlife trade meets muthi, vultures teeter on the brink of extinction – conservationists
• Bult magazine: ARU joins forces with other institutions for Maloti-Drakensberg alpine research. 

• Researchers find new grass species in Maloti-Drakensberg area
• Planting trees will not solve the climate crisis
• Vulture restaurants created in bid to save endangered species
• Crucial Milestone for Ecosystems Research in South Africa
• Is it a bird? Is it a bee? No, it's a lizard pollinating South Africa's 'hidden flower’
• U.S. State Department Grant Funds Mountain-to-Mountain Collaboration Between Appalachian State University in North Carolina and South Africa’s University of the Free State
• Sub-Saharan Africa is set to experience a human demographic explosion around mountains at a time when water and grass are under climate change pressure
• People flock to mountains, research shows
• Prof Moffett’s latest offering collates hundreds of mountain research material into one accessible reference book

ARU and partners activities on video

 
 
Drakensberg helicopter trip footage, 16 August 2021