Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
04 January 2021 | Story Andre Damons | Photo Supplied
From left to right: Makashane Ntlhabo (PhD student at the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies), Dr Tascha Vos (Centre for Environmental Management) and Dr Stephanie Cawood (Centre for Gender and Africa Studies).

Two researchers from the University of the Free State (UFS) are studying how water quality could be used at informal heritage sites to measure the health of the sites. They are also aiming to test the workability of their Rapid Integrity Appraisal (RIA) bio-cultural screening model as a way to safeguard informal heritage sites and cultural heritage.

Dr Stephanie Cawood from the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies and Dr Tascha Vos from the Centre for Environmental Management,a limnologist with a doctorate in environmental management, hope to achieve wider application for the RIA model beyond the eastern Free State’s sacred sites and to consider the feasibility of RIA to inform the monitoring and management regimes of formal heritage sites as well.

This interdisciplinary research is unique and brings together the science of aquatic ecology (limnology) as well as the cultural and social human dynamics of heritage, pilgrimage and ritual and how they interact.

Sacred sites and places of pilgrimage

“In previous research, we documented a link between the environmental integrity and public health of informal heritage sites in the eastern Free State and the cultural heritage associated with these sites. They are considered sacred sites and places of pilgrimage and include various sacred valleys and caves in the Mohokare Valley in the eastern Free State along the South Africa-Lesotho border.

“We detected a cycle of risk between human, animal and ecological risk factors where water quality is representative of ecological risk and cultural practices associated with the intrinsic heritage of the sites. Based on this cycle of risk and conventional aquatic biomonitoring models, we developed a unique bio-cultural screening model called Rapid Integrity Appraisal specifically designed for the biomonitoring of informal heritage sites such as the eastern Free State sacred sites,” the two researchers explain.

Rapid Integrity Appraisal

According to Dr Cawood, who is very knowledgeable about pilgrimage movement in the Mohokare Valley and has conducted regular fieldwork trips to these sites from 2007-2010, RIA is a bio-cultural screening model to determine the need for intervention at informal heritage sites.

Says Dr Cawood: “Ideally, a complete bio-cultural screening model would include all existing bio-monitoring indices. However, in a country such as South Africa which has immense social challenges, the formal heritage sector is under-resourced. Resources are even scarcer for informal heritage management.”

Dr Vos says this means that the full spectrum of biomonitoring indices simply cannot be justified for informal heritage sites. Therefore, in the specific context of limited resources in terms of time, expertise and funding, a pragmatic view has to be taken to rapidly and efficiently assess the integrity of informal sites.

“We found certain analyses related to water quality more valuable for extrapolation than others and we conceptualised these parameters as forming the RIA model. The idea behind RIA was to find the most expedient and efficient mode to rapidly assess the integrity of a particular informal heritage site. RIA is not meant to be a comprehensive method but is rather aimed at collecting baseline data for immediate decision-making and the possible implementation of a full water-quality assessment, or perhaps a complete bio-cultural screening,” according to Dr Vos.

Great potential

They have recently been funded by the UFS for this interesting interdisciplinary project which started in 2018. They have already completed the fieldwork and are now left with the data analysis and interpretation and the writing of articles. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic negatively affected their progress in this regard, but they hope to finalise the project next year.

According to the researchers the project has great potential for application in heritage management anywhere, not only for the monitoring of informal heritage sites, but for poorly managed tourist sites that may be ecologically compromised.

News Archive

Suspension of the South African Doping Control Laboratory (SADoCoL) by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)
2016-05-04

The senior leadership of the UFS and the management of the South African Doping Control Laboratory (SADoCoL) take note of the decision by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to suspend the laboratory’s accreditation to perform doping control analysis on biological samples of athletes and sportsmen and -women until 30 September 2016. During this time of suspension, all sport-related samples will be sent for analysis to the WADA accredited laboratory in Qatar until the accreditation of SADoCoL is re-established. Analysis according to WADA accreditation will therefore not be interrupted during the period of the suspension of the accreditation of SADoCoL.

The announcement by WADA on 3 May 2016 follows a voluntary decision by SADoCoL in March 2016 to temporarily close the laboratory for some of its routine analytical duties for six months, as from 1 April 2016. The decision was taken in consultation with the senior leadership of the UFS and other role players, especially the Department of Sport and Recreation of South Africa (SRSA) and the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS). SADoCoL is a specialised service laboratory of the University of the Free State (UFS) and has been in existence for more than thirty years.

Due to the ever-increasing demands on the number, variety and analytical sensitivity of compounds to be analysed according to the Prohibited List of WADA, technical and infrastructure adaptations need to be implemented in the laboratory continuously to keep up with the demands. Over the last year, SADoCoL has drastically increased its capacity in both personnel and infrastructure, to a point where these changes can be implemented for optimal performance of the laboratory.  This has to be done while normal routine analysis continues, and it became clear that at present, implementation cannot be successfully accomplished together with the workload from normal routine analyses.

The time of suspension will be utilised to implement and test these new systems in order to achieve the standard presently required by WADA, as well as to perform development and improvements.  This development will be performed in close collaboration with other role players in the anti-doping movement in South Africa, such as SAIDS and SRSA. Scientific development aid will also be acquired from other doping control laboratories worldwide in order to assure that the high analytical quality is maintained and expanded to meet the fast growing challenges in this field. The progress of the process will be closely monitored, and the upgraded methodologies will then, after rigorous testing, be implemented to ensure that the required analytical quality is maintained so as to obtain re-accreditation by WADA at the conclusion of the suspension period.

Issued by: Lacea Loader (Director: Communication and Brand Management)
Telephone: +27(0)51 401 2584 or +27 (0) 83 645 2454
E-mail: news@ufs.ac.za
Fax: +27 (0) 51 444 6393

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept