MEDECOS: Call for proposals

The MEDECOS 2020 Organizing Committee invites proposals for symposia and workshops for the 15th Conference on Mediterranean-type ecosystems (MEDECOS) from 6-11 September 2020 in South Africa. Proposals should strive to be inclusive of more than one Mediterranean region Symposia: a well-integrated synthesis of a given topic or theme with broad applicability to Mediterranean-type ecosystems (MTEs). It can be structured as a series of formal talks or a moderated panel discussion allowing for greater audience participation. Symposia will each be allocated 90 or 120 minutes. Workshops: Workshops are focused sessions, not dominated by formal presentations, but rather emphasizing audience participation and [...]

2024-06-19T13:54:36+02:00September 19th, 2019|SAPECS News|
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SAPECS winter school

Last month, the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (CST) and Southern African Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS) hosted an introductory course on social-ecological systems for Masters and PhD students doing research at the interface of ecosystems and society. Twenty eight students from around Africa gathered to start their learning journey away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life at the Sustainability Institute, an international living and learning centre which provides learning experiences in ecology, community and spirit, in Stellenbosch, South Africa. The goal of the SAPECS Winter School were to provide new scholars involved in, or [...]

2024-06-19T13:54:36+02:00August 1st, 2019|People, SAPECS News|
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How to Live Better and Stop Destroying the Planet

A recent United Nations-backed report highlighted the scale of destruction humans are inflicting on the natural world. To reverse these trends, humanity must transform its economic models and food system, treat the world’s oceans far better, and think carefully about the best ways to tackle climate change. STOCKHOLM – Earlier this month, a bleak global assessment of the shocking state of life on Earth made headlines worldwide. According to the report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), about 12% of all known animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction. Worse still, humanity is destroying entire habitats, and [...]

2024-06-19T13:54:36+02:00June 13th, 2019|People, SAPECS News, Working Group Members|
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SAPECS now represented on major national scientific initiative

Alta de Vos, SAPECS Working Group Member and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Environmental Science at Rhodes University, has been appointed to represent SAPECS on the Expanded Freshwater and Terrestrial Environmental Observation Network (EFTEON) Advisory Panel. The EFTEON is a research infrastructure that is being developed under the South African Research Infrastructure Roadmap program of the Department of Science and Technology. EFTEON is conceived as a modular, highly-networked research infrastructure to support studies on coupled ecological social systems in South Africa. EFTEON will focus on setting up a network of research infrastructure in a number of distributed landscapes, each representing [...]

2024-06-19T13:54:36+02:00May 15th, 2019|People, SAPECS News|
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SAPECS winter school in social-ecological systems

15 – 19 JULY 2019, Stellenbosch, South Africa  The Southern African Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS) invites Masters’ and PhD students doing research at the interface of ecosystems and society to attend an introductory course on social-ecological systems, to be hosted by the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (CST) at Stellenbosch University. The field of social-ecological systems aims to support responses to the challenges of global environmental and societal change, particularly in terms of supporting improved environmental stewardship and addressing pressing challenges of poverty and inequality. Students and researchers who are studying these issues [...]

2024-06-19T13:54:36+02:00April 8th, 2019|SAPECS News|
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Call for abstracts: 3rd Garden Route Interface Meeting (GRIM)

Science and management co-learning to navigate social-ecological issues  17-19 September 2019  Pine Lake Marina, Sedgefield, South Africa  Background: The Garden Route Interface Meeting (GRIM) is an annual event taking place in the Garden Route and providing a forum for researchers and practitioners interested in better understanding and managing (or navigating) social-ecological systems (SES) and their complex interactions and feedbacks. Three types of interfaces are of particular interest: human-nature (social-ecological systems), theory-practice (scientists and managers), and social-natural (sciences). Previous meetings: The 2017 and 2018 meetings each attracted >70 delegates and key discussion themes during these meetings included the establishment of [...]

2024-06-19T13:54:36+02:00March 13th, 2019|SAPECS News|
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South African Women in Science Award

Congratulations to Professor Karen Esler from the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology at Stellenbosch University for finishing in second place in the South African Women in Science Awards (SAWiSA). This is the 15th edition of this prestigious event that celebrates outstanding women researchers and scientists. This year's theme was 'leveraging science, technology and innovation to enhance inclusive growth and development.' The awards aim to recognise the excellence of women scientists working in South Africa, profiling them as role models for younger scientists.  Karen was honoured for her research in ecology, specifically ecosystem restoration and invasive biology, where [...]

2024-06-19T13:54:36+02:00September 3rd, 2018|SAPECS News|
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Research Project Coordinator for CST

The Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (CST) is a research flagship initiative at Stellenbosch University (SU), that brings together research on transdisciplinary, complexity, sustainability and resilience at SU. The CST hosts leading scientists and students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, and fosters collaborations with a variety of departments across the University, nationally and globally, providing a vibrant hub for solution-orientated, transdisciplinary sustainability science. The primary objective of the CST is to co-produce transformational knowledge on the dynamics of multi-scale, social-ecological change in partnership with key stakeholders, integrating across food, energy, water and urban systems, and thereby provide strategic [...]

2024-06-19T13:54:36+02:00July 25th, 2018|SAPECS News|
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PhD bursary:Social‐Ecological Systems & Resilience 

Historical and conceptual development of Social‐Ecological Systems (SES) research  The research within this PhD project will  focus on the different aspects associated with the historical and  epistemic development of the interdisciplinary field of SES research. During the course of the last 30 years, social-ecological systems (SES) research has emerged as a field of enquiry that spans the traditional divide  between the natural and social sciences. SES research is based on the insight that human‐nature relations  are integrated to the extent that the delineation between social systems and ecological systems is artificial  and  arbitrary.  Applications  of  social‐ecological  resilience  thinking [...]

2024-06-19T13:54:36+02:00June 29th, 2018|SAPECS News|
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Young Scholars Spring School on SES research 5-10 October 2018

The Young Scholars Spring School follows the 2nd Garden Route Interface Meeting (2-4 Oct 2018) and will build on the same theme of “science and practice colearning to navigate complex social-ecological issues”. The main aim will be to stimulate and capacitate young scholars (master to post-doc levels) interested in social-ecological systems (SES) and transdisciplinary research. Participants will be exposed to a broad spectrum of approaches and methods that can be used to design social-ecological studies as well as hands-on study design in collaboration with peers, managers, experienced academics and dedicated mentors. The school will help to strengthen the [...]

2024-06-19T13:54:36+02:00June 7th, 2018|SAPECS News|
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