One Year Fixed Term internship: Supporting an integrated systemic resilience approach to natural resource management in the Olifants River Basin AWARD, Hoedspruit Limpopo This internship opportunity is offered through the Association for Water & Rural Development (AWARD; www.award.org.za) under the 5-year RESILIM programme. AWARD is a research-based NGO that has had a 15 year focus on water resources policy, management and livelihoods. More recently we have an increased focus on biodiversity. We work on systemic and social learning approaches to water issues at local and catchment-scales at both national and international levels (mainly water-sharing between South Africa and Mozambique). Some examples of key areas [...]

Scientists from the Faculty of Science at Stellenbosch University (SU) are responsible for a brand new addition to the Woordfees programme this year, namely the Science Café Stellenbosch. The aim of a Science Café is to bridge the gap between science and the general public by entering into a conversation in a non-academic environment, like a restaurant or café. There are already hundreds of Science Cafés all over the world. Prof Louise Warnich, dean of the Faculty of Science at SU, says a Science Café is the ideal opportunity to involve the public in conversations about science: "Scientists have a responsibility to communicate [...]

This is a preliminary conference call for the 2015 Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) conference, held in South Africa on 2-5 November. The conference will be held in Stellenbosch, at the Spier Wine Farm and Conference Centre, 2-5 November 2015. Call for abstracts to be announced soon. PECS 2015 will gather scientists from various disciplines, from within and beyond the PECS network, to share cutting-edge research insights on social-ecological dynamics in the Anthropocene. The conference will engage and involve multiple stakeholders concerned with sustainable development and who are interested in developing new solutions and strategies. The conference is intended [...]

An international team of researchers, including SAPECS-affiliated scientists Reinette (Oonsie) Biggs and Belinda Reyers, have updated the planetary boundaries that define a "safe operating space" for humanity on Earth. This work builds on research published in 2009, which identified nine processes and systems that regulate the stability and resilience of the entire Earth System, thus providing the favourable conditions upon which our societies depend. However, these nine planetary processes have thresholds or tipping points ("boundaries") relating to human-induced changes to the environment. Crossing these thresholds can have dire consequences for human development, which means that we should aim to stay within the [...]

Last week, on the 3rd and 4th of November, more than 60 academics, practitioners, and students from around South Africa gathered at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (STIAS) for an open science dialogue on the “Seeds of a Good Anthropocene: A Southern African Perspective”, organized by SAPECS and the Centre for Studies in Complexity. The Anthropocene is a new planetary era in which the extent of human impact on the Earth and its systems has come to rival the great forces of nature. There is growing recognition that dramatic socio‐cultural, political and technological changes are required to achieve a [...]

For the past year and a half, PhD student Gregg Brill has been interviewing Cape Town residents who visit Table Mountain National Park, in order to understand user behaviour, environmental perceptions, as well as the values individuals assign to an urban protected area. More specifically, Gregg looks at how visitors use, value and impact water-related ecosystem services in the park over space and time. User groups interviewed in this study included sporting groups, religious assemblies, scientific organisations, conservation volunteers, hiking clubs, environmental agencies, researchers and various other clusters. Surveys distributed to user groups document the length of park access and [...]

Surrounded by the beautiful Outeniqua Mountains and situated within deeply green pine plantations, the NMMU campus at Saasveld provided a perfect retreat from the hustle and bustle of everyday life for 21 students from all over southern Africa. The students had gathered in this tranquil place near George, South Africa, to participate in the very first SAPECS winter school held from the 30th of June to the 4th of July 2014. The main goal of the winter school was to develop the capacity of these new scholars in the field of social-ecological systems to plan, execute and interpret their research. [...]

A new popular science publication has been produced by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, entitled "Applying resilience thinking - Seven principles for building resilience in social-ecological systems". This is a popular summary of the Cambridge University book "Principles for Building Resilience: Sustaining Ecosystem Services in Social-Ecological Systems" (2014). This book, in turn, expands on the comprehensive review "Towards principles for enhancing the resilience of ecosystem services" by Reinette Biggs et al., published in the journal Annual Reviews of Environment and Resources in 2012. Many SAPECS-affiliated researchers were involved in the process of compiling the review, book and popular summary. For more [...]

To compete for a burgeoning tourist market looking for a great wildlife experience,  protected areas (particularly more commercially driven privately-owned ones) often over-stock on charismatic species. But do more charismatic species equate to more visitors, and more revenue? In a paper recently published in the journal Ecological Applications, and featured more popularly in the magazine “Conservation”, Kristi Maciejewski and Graeme Kerley from the SAPECS-affiliated Protected Areas Project find that this is not necessarily the case.  In their study, carried out in the Eastern Cape, higher elephant densities did not translate to increased elephant sightings, nor increased revenue.  The researchers argue that, paradoxically, [...]