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19 March 2019 | Story Dr Cinde Greyling
Dr Mutana and Prof Mukwada
Many people enjoy spending time in the mountainous Drakensberg region. Prof Geofrey Mukwada’s involvement with the UFS Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) sparked an interest in sustainable tourism in the area. Pictured here are Dr Sarudzai Mutana with Prof Mukwada.

Not only is the Qwaqwa Campus situated in a beautiful region – its researchers also contribute to keeping the area pristine. Recent research by Prof Geofrey Mukwada and his PhD student, Dr Sarudzai Mutana, focused on indicators monitoring sustainable tourism development in the Drakensberg region.

Dr Mukwada is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography on the University of the Free State (UFS) Qwaqwa Campus. 

Our majestic mountains are fragile

Many people enjoy spending time in the mountainous Drakensberg region – either as adventure seekers exploring the many trails, or just relaxing and reconnecting with nature. Prof Mukwada’s involvement with the UFS Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) sparked an interest in sustainable tourism in the area. “Mountains are fragile but attractive environments which continue to attract tourists,” he said. “Tourism is one of the major business sectors in the Drakensberg region, with promising growth opportunities and proving to be an anchor of green economy in the future – if practiced correctly.” Unfortunately, the issue of monitoring sustainable tourism has not been widely researched in African mountains. 

According to international standards

“We specifically looked at the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC), which is an international best-practice framework to help destinations monitor and ensure that tourism is developed in a responsible manner,” Prof Mukwada explained. “South Africa’s Manual for Responsible Tourism was designed according to some of the recommendations of the GSTC. But we found that, while the tourism and hospitality operators in the Drakensberg region appreciates the need to monitor and ensure sustainable tourism in the area, there is limited use of indicators as a tool for monitoring.” 

Forward together

There are competing demands between land-use and development practices and alternatives in the region – unless the focus shifts to sustainable practices, the short-term gains could be followed by dire consequences. “We suggest an integrated monitoring of tourism development, with a pro-poor focus that involves more local community leaders. Going forward, we would like to see the industry adopt the indicators proposed in our study.”

News Archive

Partnership between UFS and Farmovs-Parexel strengthened
2004-12-09

The synthesizing of drug molecules to be used as reference standards during the quantitative analysis of drugs and metabolites in biological fluids, will from now on be done by the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Department of Chemistry.

This agreement was recently signed by the UFS’s Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and FARMOVS-PAREXEL.

To expand the collaboration between the two units further, FARMOVS-PAREXEL has donated instrumentation to the value of about R 2 million to the Department of Chemistry. These include a tandem liquid chromatograph/mass spectrometer and several other chromatographic systems.

The instruments will be used for research on both the synthesis of reference standards and bio-prospecting. They will play a major role in the training of students in the techniques of advanced mass spectrometry and chromatography at the UFS and will lead to publications in international scientific journals.

For a number of years FARMOVS-PAREXEL has presented Masters and PhD degrees in Bio-Analytical Chemistry. A new collaboration has now been reached where joint projects will be used for Masters and PhD degrees by the two institutions.

Two FARMOVS-PAREXEL staff members have enrolled for Ph D-degrees in the organic section of the UFS’s Department of Chemistry. Senior staff members of the two institutions will act as joint supervisors.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
9 December 2004

 

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