SAEON in the media

"The newly established South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) has decided to make the savanna regions of the lowveld one of its focal areas. Funded by the National Research Foundation, SAEON Ndlovu Node - as the Phalaborwa office is called - aims to establish long-term ecological monitoring in the region with the intention of being able to provide the data necessary to better understand the effects of global change on our ecosystems.

"In addition to monitoring, SAEON will be facilitating and promoting the necessary research to be able to understand the mechanisms behind the change and thus to be able to better inform policy on land use in the future.

"As part of SAEON's activities, the Ndlovu Node has an Environmental Science Outreach Programme which aims to begin to redress some of the problems in science training, and particularly environmental science training in the region. The programme has a two-pronged strategy - to support and better inform the educators, and to run environmental science projects with schools to train the learners.

"This past weekend (18 February 2006) SAEON ran its first Educator Support Workshop at Letaba Camp in KNP. Thirteen high school educators were given presentations by scientists from the KNP (Dr Andrew Deacon on biodiversity and Mr Hendrik Sithole on the invertebrates of KNP), the Transvaal Museum (Dr Rob Toms on mopane worm ecology and sustainable harvesting) and SAEON (Dr Dave Balfour on global change and the science of elephant management). Presentations were interspersed with breakaway groups tackling tasks and reporting back.

"The workshops will continue through the year and as time proceeds SAEON hopes to be able to increase the number of educators to these workshops.

"SAEON works in close partnership with SANParks (KNP) and other organisations such as the Palabora Foundation."

Also read Joe Sibiya's response to the Workshop. Joe is environmental science outreach officer for the SAEON Ndlovu Node.