The Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) is launching an open online course together with the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).7 The course, "Planetary Boundaries and Human Opportunities: The Quest for Safe and Just Development on a Resilient Planet" will help students explore and apply a range of emerging concepts within sustainability science. These concepts include: the Anthropocene, planetary boundaries, the social-ecological systems approach and resilience thinking. Approaches that are at the core of contemporary research and debates in the arena of global sustainability Free, massive, open and online The course will help participants to frame and understand the trends in human-caused global [...]

INVITATION FOR A SYMPOSIUM PRIVATE INVESTMENTS IN NATURE CONSERVATION: STUDYING MOTIVES AND BENEFITS   Date: October 20th, 2014 Time: 09.00 – 16.00 hours (Tea and Coffee: 8:30 – 09:00) Venue: Seminar Room 1 (5th Floor), Environmental & Geographical Science Building, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town Organizers: Maano Ramutsindela (UCT) & Marja Spierenburg (VU Amsterdam)   PROGRAMME: Introductions: 09:00 – 09:15   Session 1: Chair Maano Ramutsindela Presentation 1: 09:15 – 10:15 Neoliberal Nature and African Agency : Eco-tourism, trophy hunting and the commodification of nature in akuleke Contract Park, South Africa (Steven Robins – University of Stellenbosch) Presentation 2: 10:15 – 11:15 Private investment [...]

The GreenMatter Fellowship Mapula Awards are focused on developing higher level skills for the UNESCO designated Biosphere Reserves in South Africa. Biosphere Reserves provide significant potential for incorporating socio-ecological benefits with traditional land management and are a national conservation focus. The Mapula Award (Mapula meaning mother of rain) symbolizes the seeding environment that the founding award partners GreenMatter, The Mapula Foundation, Stellenbosch University and the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), amongst others, are creating to decrease the scarcity levels by providing holistic development opportunities for local talent in Biosphere Reserve research and management. Applicants are invited for the GreenMatter Fellowship - Mapula Awards for [...]

The National Research Foundation (NRF) is responsible for the management of the DST-NRF Internship Programme in which unemployed Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) graduates and postgraduates are offered an opportunity to acquire practical work experience through mentoring and exposure to a research environment. This opportunity is also offered to those unemployed graduates and postgraduates who are interested in research management; research support and administration at public higher education institutions and research agencies through a partnership with the Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association (SARIMA). Applications are invited from candidates who are interested to acquire work experience in the areas [...]

ACDI is proudly hosting Prof Carl Folke at UCT on October 16th in the Kramer LT, Middle Campus at 17:00. Prof Folke, from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, will be talking about Reconnecting Development to the Biosphere. Please click on this advertisement for more details (RSVP by 10 October).

The Faculty of Humanities at the University of Cape Town is delighted to announce the launch in February 2015 of a new M Phil programme specializing in the Environmental Humanities, co-taught across a range of disciplines in the Humanities with the active participation of colleagues in the Law, Science, and Engineering faculties.   Funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, we are able to offer three full Masters scholarships, and two three-year doctoral fellowships, as well as a post-doctoral fellowship. Applications are due October 31 2014.   For further information, please see the website www.envhumsouth.uct.ac.za

INVITATION FOR A SYMPOSIUM PRIVATE INVESTMENTS IN NATURE CONSERVATION: STUDYING MOTIVES AND BENEFITS Date: October 20th, 2014 Time: 09.00 – 16.00 hours Venue: University of Cape Town, Department of Environmental & Geographical Science (room to be announced) Organizers: Maano Ramutsindela (UCT) & Marja Spierenburg (VU Amsterdam)   Nature conservation has long been considered to be incompatible with the interests of the private (profit) sector and was deemed the prerogative of the state. This view changed from the mid-1980s onwards when the focus shifted from species protection to sustainable development. Increasingly environmental organizations started promoting the involvement of private (for-profit) sector organisations [...]

The World Bank’s Forum for Agricultural Risk Management (FARMD) will host its Annual Conference, Managing Agricultural Risks in a Changing Climate in Sub-Saharan Africa, on November 4-5, 2014 in Johannesburg, South Africa.   The objective of the event is to explore how climate change is impacting agricultural production and marketing systems in Africa and to better understand the implications for agricultural risk management. The two-day conference will bring together more than 200 participants from the public and private sectors, academia, farmer organizations, and development organizations. Attendees will have the chance to interact with leading experts in the field and to attend sessions on [...]

The African Doctoral Academy of Stellenbosch University is pleased to offer the 2015 Summer School in Research Methods from 12 to 23 January. Since its conception six years ago we have seen the Summer School grow in scope and popularity, while covering a variety of basic and advanced quantitative and qualitative research methodologies and tools for researchers. The Summer School offers a range of one-week courses aimed at prospective- and enrolled doctoral students, supervisors and other academics involved in research.   6th ANNUAL SUMMER SCHOOL IN RESEARCH METHODS Week one 12 to 16 January 2015 Select one course per week [...]

SANParks is re-advertising the rather exciting post-doc position for someone versed in a combination of complexity thinking, management of social-ecological systems, systems thinking, social/organizational learning and/or institutional change. Closing date is the 30th of September . Please see below for more information: Systemic futures post-doc - readvert (Sept 2014)