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11 March 2022 | Story NONSINDISO QWABE | Photo Supplied
Dr Ralph Clarke
Dr Ralph Clark, Director of the Afromontane Research Unit.

The African Mountain Research Foundation (AMRF), in association with the Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) of the University of the Free State (UFS), and the Global Mountain Safeguard Research Programme (GLOMOS), is hosting the first-ever Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2022). The theme of the conference is Southern African Mountains – their value and vulnerabilities.

The conference will bring relevant people together into one space for networking and information sharing, leading to more robust regional and international collaborations and comparative mountain studies with an increase in research activities, student capacity, researcher capacity and academic outputs that feed into policy and action. 

The conference will take place from 14 to 17 March 2022 in the majestic Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa and Lesotho. 

According to the SAMC2022 website, this is a truly Southern African regional mountain conference, targeting the African region south of the Congo rainforest (DRC) and Lake Rukwa (Tanzania), but including Madagascar, the Comoros and the Mascarenes (i.e., Angola, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo [southern mountains], Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, La Réunion, South Africa, southern Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).

Dr Ralph Clark, ARU Director, said the conference would be a high-level international event with UNESCO patronage and very valuable sponsors.

“The programme will have six parallel tracks (one being dedicated to postgraduate students), with about 200 papers being delivered. In addition, we have some very high-profile special sessions, such as an MRI special session on long-term monitoring activities and associated data availability for climate change-related applications across Africa’s mountains, as well as a UNESCO special session on regional collaboration. We also have Prof Julian Bayliss, described as the man who discovered an unseen world, as the guest speaker at the closing event.”

The conference will bring together relevant people in one space for networking and information sharing, leading to more robust regional and international collaborations and comparative mountain studies, with an increase in research activities, student capacity, researcher capacity, and academic outputs that feed into policy and action.

The GLOMOS team, one of the long-term partners of the ARU, spent the week of 8 to 11 March 2022 on the Qwaqwa Campus to strengthen collaboration and pave the way for new research opportunities in Phuthaditjhaba and the Maloti-Drakensberg.
GLOMOS represents an interface between the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and Eurac Research. Postdoctoral fellow, Dr Stefano Terzi, said: “It’s very interesting for us to look at the Maloti-Drakensberg area because of its diversity. We are in the process of really exciting collaborations.”
Their projects include an understanding of the root causes of land degradation and improving decision-making processes for current water management within the context of water scarcity in the Maloti-Drakensberg.
• For more information on the speakers and the programme, click here 


News Archive

DiMTEC teaches on disasters with international counterparts
2009-06-12

 
Photo: Supplied


 

The Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa (DiMTEC) at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently presented a training course on vulnerability and disaster risk management in collaboration with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS).

The focus was on social, environmental and economical vulnerability, global warming and early warning systems.

Dr Fabrice Renaud, Associate Director: UNU-EHS, Dr-Eng. Jörn Birkmann, Head of the section Vulnerability Assessment: UNU-EHS, and Prof. Dusan Sakulsky, Africa Representative: UNU-EHS from Bonn, Germany presented the course, together with Mr Andries Jordaan, Director: DiMTEC and Eugene Poolman, Chief Forecasting Specialist: Disaster Risk Reduction, South African Weather Service.

This course will be presented again at the Novi Sad University, Serbia in October 2009 and September 2010 as well as in Bonn, Germany in May 2010, where it will be part of the UNU PhD block course.

Conducting the training were, from the left: Mr Jordaan, Prof. Sakulski, Ms Awatif Ayadh, DiMTEC student from Sudan, and Dr -Ing. Vilma Hossini, Training Programme Associate: UNU-EHS.

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