SAEON and SAIAB sign hosting agreement for new node

 At the beginning of December Johan Pauw, Head of SAEON, and Prof Paul Skelton, Managing Director of the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB) signed an agreement for SAIAB to host a new SAEON Node in the Coastal-Inshore Zone.

"SAIAB is extremely pleased to be hosting the SAEON Coastal-Inshore Marine node as this is an opportunity to extend the interaction and service with the coastal scientific community that we already enjoy," Prof Paul Skelton said, and added: "There are many synergistic opportunities that arise from this placement in terms of science, data management and public awareness and outreach, and we therefore look forward to appointing the staff and getting the show on the road as soon as we can."

A considerable body of knowledge exists within South African marine science and much of this is reliant on historical and ongoing long-term observation programmes already stretching over many decades. “The initiative by SAEON to provide a home for all marine science data is widely hailed by the marine science community as important and timely,” said Prof Skelton, “as much data is in danger of being lost due to individuals leaving the system, or not having been digitised or not being supported by adequate metadata.”

Designating nodes for the marine science domain

The process to designate nodes for the marine science domain has been driven via the SANCOR Steering Committee, who co-ordinated a consultative process with relevant regional fora to produce a balanced proposal for the nodes that has the support of the marine science community at large.

SANCOR (www.botany.uwc.ac.za/sancor), the representative coordinating body of marine science in South Africa , has some 1 000 individuals associated with it through its organisational membership structure. The individuals are employed by government departments, municipalities, conservation agencies, higher education institutions, various industries, research organisations and consultancies. The organisation is actively involved in driving several initiatives to foster marine science, which, according to Prof Skelton, can be broadly defined as the biophysical study of the coastal zone and the oceans surrounding it, as well as the socio-economic study of fisheries and human-environment interdependencies.

The ensuing consultative process included several briefings and report backs between the parties involved, interspersed with a series of four consultative workshops in Cape Town , Port Elizabeth and Durban, one of them with Cape Town students. In addition, several key individuals were approached with regard to some of the critical issues under consideration, such as the east-west divide in marine science.

A draft proposal for two nodes, one for the coastal-inshore zone and one for the marine-offshore ecosystems was submitted to the SAEON National Office for comment. The amended report was presented to the South African Marine Science Symposium in July 2005 and circulated to the wider marine science community for comment. This version of the report also served as the basis of a three-day site visit tour during which the potential node host organisations were assessed in terms of the recommendations made in the report. The final proposal contained all further comment received from the SANCOR community.

TSC task team

In July 2005, a SAEON Technical Steering Committee (TSC) task team consisting of Prof Mark Jury ( University of Zululand ), Mr Imraan Saloojee (Department of Science and Technology), the report’s author Dr Barry Clark (Anchor Consulting), and Mr Johan Pauw (SAEON), paid a visit to the potential node host organisations proposed in the report. The overall purpose of the visit was to give members of the TSC an opportunity to assess physical and logistical facilities on the ground, to assess organisational culture and provision of services, and to meet and discuss issues with relevant persons of the proposed host organisations.

The potential host organisations were identified as the Oceanographic Research Institute (ORI), SA Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB), Marine & Coastal Management (MCM), and South African Data Centre for Oceanographic Research of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). These organisations were requested to respond to a list of management-oriented criteria to give the task team an overall impression of the suitability of the organisation as a SAEON node host.

Other issues that were investigated included the availability of office space, laboratory and storage facilities, a library and sufficient parking; the IT network, technical support, internet access and server room; and the rental fee structure for office space.

Aspects relating to human resource management, data management, financial management, education, observation management, potential core sites, general administration as well as legal issues were debated with potential host organisations. The task team also assessed aspects such as the host organisation’s attitude towards the advancement of science, the organisational orientation towards commercialisation and environmental governance, and their expectations when hosting a SAEON node.

From a data management perspective, for instance, it is critical for SAEON to assess the potential host organisation’s expertise in GIS and data management, and their willingness to make node data freely accessible. From an observation management point of view, important considerations are the willingness of the host organisation to give access to its observation sites and equipment as applicable, its ability to give technical support and enter into joint projects, whether existing or potential, and its record of collaboration with other organisations.

Important aspects in education that came under scrutiny were the current role and capacity within the organisation and the resources and networks available that can in future be shared with SAEON.

General observations

The task team’s general observations were that the marine science community is extremely well co-ordinated through the SANCOR Joint Venture between the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism and the National Research Foundation. The funding streams from these two organisations are supporting marine science consistently, but there are also a number of private consultants active in the field.

A number of large international multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional marine science programmes are in operation, such as the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem programme, the African Coelacanth Ecology Programme, and the Western-Indian Ocean Large Marine Ecosystem.

Larger national programmes include the Sea and the Coast Programme, the South African National Antarctica Programme and the South African Data Centre for Oceanography (SADCO; a repository for physical oceanographic data from ships cruising around southern Africa ). A very successful programme, the Benguela Ecology Programme, ran for more than a decade and has been instrumental in creating an exceptional understanding of the West Coast marine ecosystem which supports the bulk of the South African fishing industry.

Several coastal and inshore monitoring sites are being kept alive by the interests of individual researchers, provincial conservation agencies, municipalities and Marine Protected Areas. Monitoring of coral reefs is performed by ORI. A network of estuarine researchers called the Consortium for Estuarine Research and Management (CERM) meets regularly under the auspices of SANCOR to coordinate their activities. Monitoring of coastal vegetation appears to be deficient and generally there is a need to improve monitoring of biodiversity, pollution and invasive species.

A Marine and Coastal Educators Network (MCEN) is another of SANCOR’s coordinating groups. MCEN provides a network structure within which SAEON’s education outreach programmes will find excellent support. The major organisations considered as potential host organisations all have an education section which could operate in synergy with SAEON.

All four organisations visited by the task team were found to be competent and eager to host a node. They also expressed their intention to collaborate with the nodes in the event that it is hosted elsewhere. The proposal indicated the potential and even desirability for a combination of organisations to collaborate in support of a node and this has been accepted as a principle approach by all the organisations.

Choice of node office locality

An issue with a political context within the marine science community is the perceived dominance of the Western Cape region through the location of major role players like MCM and universities over there and the economic power of the fishing industry of the West Coast. In contrast, there are only a few smaller marine science organisations and a limited number of active researchers and programmes spread out along the southern and eastern seaboards.

This issue weighed heavily in the regional workshops and in the resulting proposal. Due to the location of the critical mass for offshore observations in the Western Cape, the task team accepted the recommendation in the proposal that the coastal node host should be found outside of the Western Cape. For this reason ORI and SAIAB were visited with a view to recommend a coastal-inshore node host, whereas MCM and SADCO were visited with a view to make a recommendation on the host organisation of a node for marine-offshore ecosystems.

And the host for SAEON’s Node in the Coastal-Inshore Zone is …

SAIAB in Grahamstown and ORI in Durban were found to be equally placed on many criteria, but after consideration the task team recommended the placement of the node for the coastal-inshore zone at SAIAB due to it being a public institution and better placed to engage and provide open access to data for the broader marine and coastal community.

Both organisations were able to provide an appropriate East-West balance with a sister node in the Western-Cape, both have good IT and education capacities and both have their tenures secured and are willing and able to provide office space.

However, with SAIAB receiving its mandate and core funding from the Department of Science and Technology like SAEON, the two organisations are well-aligned. ORI is a non-government not-for-profit organisation that generates its own funding and although its financial management system is impeccable, it is not specifically governed to comply with the Public Finance Management Act. It was felt that ORI’s persistent need to commercialise operations might become a source of conflict for a SAEON node. SAIAB, on the other hand, has clearly demonstrated a culture of open data access by recently becoming one of the first data providers for the South African Biodiversity Information Facility (SABIF).

Both organisations were found to be growing and active units, with excellent collaborative networks, that are also international. Several programmes driven by these organisations will become important data providers to SAEON.

It was also considered that SAIAB has a significant terrestrial arm that would be beneficial for creating links with SAEON’s terrestrial nodes. It appeared that ORI is placing a growing emphasis on offshore work and hence the task team recommends that ORI be given a critical support position in the node for marine-offshore ecosystems.

It was clear to the task team that the notion in the proposal of three distributed monitors in support of the node for the coastal-inshore zone would be essential. The task team recommends that the future Node Manager distribute these monitors around the coast, possibly at organisations such as Kwazulu-Natal Wildlife in Durban , South African National Parks in Wilderness, and Cape Nature Conservation in Cape Town . These monitors of the various role players would be actively collecting data. With a 3 000-km coastline, the ability of a node office in Grahamstown to gain the necessary reach would be greatly enhanced by these monitors.

Recommendations

The task team recommended that:

• The node for the coastal-inshore zone be placed and employed at SAIAB in Grahamstown
• The node for the coastal-inshore zone be supported by three distributed monitors placed at suitable organisations actively monitoring the coastal and inshore zone
• The constellation of sites be derived from a broad consultative process driven by each node manager
• The Node should make appropriate use of SANCOR to coordinate its activities and should regularly report its results to SANCOR
• SAEON should take up organisational membership of SANCOR and ensure connectivity to large marine science programmes
• The node manager should establish conceptual and work linkages with SAEON’s terrestrial nodes