Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

Second Southern African Mountain Conference announced

12 March 2024 Photo Supplied

ARU2024 Conference — SAMC2025 (scheduled 17 to 20 March 2025 at Champagne Sports Resort) will build on the highly successful First Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2022) held in March 2022.

On 5 March 2024, the first announcement went out for the Second Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2025). SAMC2025 will take place next year from 17 to 20 March at Champagne Sports Resort. The theme for the upcoming conference is: Southern African Mountains – Overcoming Boundaries and Barriers.

This event will once again bring together academics, researchers, early career professionals, practitioners, policy makers, postgraduate students, and government officials to engage and exchange experiences, research findings, problem solving, and to foster partnerships regarding the transboundary and transdisciplinary sustainability of Southern African mountains.

The SAMC series is conceptualised by the Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) at the University of the Free State (UFS), the African Mountain Research Foundation (AMRF), and Global Mountain Safeguard Research (GLOMOS) – a joint initiative between EURAC Research and the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security) and implemented by the Peaks Foundation.

Prof Ralph Clark, Director of the ARU, says “SAM2022 was a wonderful event that greatly encouraged regional collegiality around Southern African mountains. We hope that SAMC2025 will be even more impactful in growing our regional community of practice for a stronger transboundary agenda, and for attaining real solutions to the problems facing mountain ecosystems and mountain peoples.”

With Southern African mountains comprising those situated south of the Congo Rainforest and Lake Rukwa – including the mountainous islands of the western Indian Ocean – SAMC2025 is encouraging participation from Angola, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Réunion, South Africa, southern Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

According to the organisers, the SAMC series is purposefully multi- and trans-disciplinary, with a strong impetus to link science, policy, and practitioner realms, and thus all approaches are encouraged. A first of its kind in the region will be a Royal Mountain Indaba, bringing together customary law, mountains, and the Sustainable Development Goals, given that vast tracks of mountain-scape in Southern Africa are directly under traditional governance.

SAMC2025 will build on the highly successful first Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2022) held in March 2022. This, the first of its kind in Southern Africa, attracted 259 participants from 21 countries, with 168 papers delivered and four sponsored special sessions. SAMC2025 will include plenary sessions, parallel oral paper presentation sessions, poster sessions, panel discussions, and sessions for special interest groups – with separate review tracks for abstract submissions from the science, policy, and practitioner sectors that accommodate those sectors to their best advantage.

The following useful resources are available and can be downloaded:

1. Invitation SAMC2025.

2. Announcements and Call for Abstracts – document includes access to

call for abstracts with link to online submission system;
call for proposals for workshops and/or panel discussions;
publication of selected conference papers;
registration information;
student and early career academics summit;
important dates;
venue details;
information for international travellers; and
information for directing enquiries.

3. Guidelines for the submission of abstracts – document includes access to

presentation categories and types;
review of abstracts;
style guide for abstracts submitted for oral or poster presentations;
conditions; and
other considerations with regard to formatting, style, and technical details.

4. Guidelines for the submission of proposals for workshops and/or panel discussions – document includes access to

review of proposals;
style guide for proposals for workshops and/or panel discussions; and
conditions.

5. Royal Mountain Indaba.

6. Sponsorship opportunities.

7. Conference sponsorship packages.

News Archive

New challenges for animal science discussed

2006-04-04

Some of the guests attending the congress were from the left Dr Heinz Meissner (honorary president of the South African Society for Animal Science (SASAS) and senior manager at the Animal Production Institute of the Agricultural Research Council), Mr Paul Bevan (President of SASAS) and Prof Magda Fourie (Vice-Rector: Academic Planning at the UFS).
Photo: Lacea Loader

New challenges for animal science discussed

The South African Society for Animal Science (SASAS) is presenting its 41st Congress at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Main Campus in Bloemfontein.

The congress started yesterday and will run until Thursday 6 April 2006. The theme is New challenges for the animal science industries.

It is one of the largest congresses in the 45 years since SASAS was founded in 1961. Among the delegates 12 African countries are represented, with the biggest delegation from Kenya. Delegates are also from the United States of America, Iran, Turkey, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal and African countries like Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana.

“Many of our members play an important role in the training of animal scientists at universities. The congress is specifically industry orientated so that scientists can interact with farmers through the respective producer organisations,” said Prof HO de Waal, Chairperson of the organising committee and lecturer at the UFS Department of Animal, Wildlife and Grassland Sciences.

According to Dr Heinz Meissner, honorary president of SASAS and a senior manager at the Animal Production Institute of the Agricultural Research Council, the National Livestock Strategy (NLS) Plan clarifies the role and responsibility of the livestock sector.

“Through this strategy we need to focus on enhancing equitable access and participation in livestock agriculture, improve global competitiveness and profitability of the livestock sector and ensure that the ventures implemented do not over utilise our resources,” said Dr Meissner.

In her welcoming address, Prof Magda Fourie, Vice-Rector: Academic Planning at the UFS highlighted the related challenges that the UFS will be focusing on specifically over the next five years. “We have identified five strategic clusters that represent broad areas of excellence in research and post-graduate education. Two of these are food production, quality and safety for Africa and sustainable development,” she said.

“The food safety and security cluster will focus on the production of food in all its varieties within the African context, encompassing the entire value chain – from production to consumption and nutrition related issues. This would include a strong emphasis on sustainable production systems,” she said.

According to Prof Fourie the rural development cluster will engage in questions around the role of higher education in sustainable development. “One of the focus areas in this strategic cluster pertains to sustainable livelihoods. It refers to a way of approaching development that incorporates all aspects of human livelihoods and means by which people obtain them,” she said.

Prof Fourie said that the challenges we are facing such as food production can only be effectively addressed through collaborative efforts. “That is why it is important that collaboration takes place between different scientific disciplines, researchers, institutions and countries who are confronted with similar difficulties,” she said.

According to Prof de Waal the congress will give key role players a unique opportunity to present a profile of what they perceive an animal scientist should be and state their specific requirement regarding the animal sciences and its applications.

“In this way we can determine what the industry’s needs are and we can re-align our curriculum to suit these needs,” said Prof de Waal.

During the next two days, various areas of interest will be discussed. This includes ruminant and monogastric nutrition, animal physiology, beef, dairy, sheep and ostrich breeding and sustainable farming covering the range from commercial to the small-scale farming level.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
4 April 2006

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

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