News
The Palaeo Lab at the Plant Conservation Unit is seeking papers for a Special Issue of Quaternary Journal. This is linked to a symposium that co-organised by Dr Estelle Razanatsoa, A/Prof, Lindsey Gillson and Prof. Rob Marchant at the ATBC 2020 in Cartagena https://atbc2020.org/.
Please see the website for more information: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/quaternary/special_issues/ATBC#info
In late September, Glynis Humphrey (Postdoctoral Research Fellow), Conor Eastment (Masters student) and Adele Julier (Postdoctoral Research Fellow) travelled to Bwabwata National Park in northern Namibia to conduct fieldwork including repeat photography, ground-truthing for remote sensing and modern pollen trap deployment.
UCT PhD graduate Zander Venter (image below) and former Plant Conservation Unit (PCU) research assistant, Samantha Venter, attended the Geo for Good Summit in Sunnyvale California from 16 – 19 September 2019. This year, the summit combined the Earth Engine User Summit and Earth Outreach’s Geo for Good User Summit to "bring together the Earth Engine and Earth Outreach communities to one larger event where scientists, non-profits and change-makers can learn from each other and potentially collaborate on projects for positive impact for our planet and its inhabitants."
Several Namibian botanists recently visited Lubango in southern Angola to explore opportunities for collaboration with the Herbarium of Lubango and tertiary institutions, as part of the Bio-Bridge Initiative of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The co-ordinator of the project, Plant Conservation Unit PhD student Kirsti Nghidinwa, was part of the trip. Apart from institutional visits, the visitors welcomed the chance to botanise around Lubango. Despite the generally dry condition of the veld at that time of the year, Angola’s remarkable botanical diversity nevertheless had something in store for the southern neighbours, who filled up SD cards with photos of breath-taking scenery and plants.