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NEWSLETTER
Issue 6 -
July 2003
Department of
Biodiversity & Conservation Biology
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Mr Pat
Mclaren |
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Prof
Mark Gibbons |
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Prof
Lincoln Raitt |
A merger of two departments at a university is a full joining together of two previously separate departments. A true merger in the legal sense occurs when both departments involved dissolve and fold their assets and liabilities into a newly created third entity. This entails the creation of a new department. However, mergers are not limited to one particular type of business or organization and they continue to grow at an ever-increasing pace. A merger includes the preparation and initial negotiations, due diligence and all involving financial, legal and human implications. It certainly is not an easy process or a process that should be pursued without sufficient planning and thought. After all, growth of any type usually is not easy, and mergers, in essence, are a growth strategy.
Before merging, the departments involved had to consider their reasons for choosing to merge in relation to the negatives and positives it will bring. The key incentive for merging the Botany and Zoology departments at the University of the Western Cape was to try to reduce the administrative responsibilities of staff members and to ensure a more efficient utilization of research and teaching time. Originally there were eight academic staff members of which two were chairpersons who did the administrative work. After merging, there are nine academic
staff members of which one is doing the administrative work. An added reason for the merge is the commonality in the programs in the Botany and Zoology departments. These two departments supplement each other in providing a broader perspective of conservation and biodiversity to optimize the use of the resources in previous departments.
Mergers are not without their downsides. They can consume an incredible amount of time and problems with mixing corporate cultures. However, the merging of the Botany and Zoology department has not had too many downsides. The merge has affected the students, particularly the students at the honors level. At the honors level the Biodiversity and Conservation Biology (BCB) department now offers a combined degree in what was initially two separate degrees in separate departments. Therefore, five twelfths of the compulsory work that the honors students do is generic and common to the two original departments. Hence the merger has resulted in intradepartmental programs instead of interdepartmental programs since they share one program instead of two. The merge has not affected the funding of projects and research programs in the BCB department because the researchers in this department, like the researchers in any other department at the University of the Western Cape, are funded by the main research funding body, i.e. the National Research Foundation (NRF). However, the NRF is not the soul source of research funding as the BCB department is funded by external funding bodies as well.
A chairperson for the Biodiversity and Conservation Biology department had to be elected since Prof. Lincoln Raitt and Prof. Mark Gibbons were the chairpersons of the Botany department and the Zoology department respectively before the merger. The role of chairperson is an elected position at the University of the Western Cape. The full time academic and technical staff of the university did the election. Mr. Pat McLaren, former chairperson of the Biochemistry (now known as the Biotechnology) department, was elected as the chairperson of the Biodiversity and Conservation Biology department. Mr. McLaren takes on the role as the chairperson of this department as a theoretical, neutral person who has had many years of experience as a chairperson.
Concurrently Prof. Lincoln Raitt and Prof. Mark Gibbons have had a slight reduction in their salaries and now have less administrative work to do (this could be something to be pleased about or something to whine about, who knows…), but they do continue working in the Biodiversity and Conservation Biology department since they still hold their initial academic posts.
Thus far, the merger is not complete since money is needed to change the infrastructure and there has not been much time for strategic meetings. It would take approximately one year before the departments are completely merged. The Biodiversity and Conservation Biology department hopes that the merger will lead to greater co-operation and synergy and with their patience and persistence, the rewards will definitely be tremendous.
SEAWASTE
attends municipal wastewater events in Africa
Domestic wastewater discharges are considered one of the most significant threats to coastal environments worldwide. For this reason, the Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities (GPA) and a number of regional meetings held within the framework of the UNEP's Regional Seas
Programme, have identified municipal wastewater management as an important area for action
by governments and other stakeholders. With financial assistance from the International Maritime Organisation and the GPA Coordination Office, the SEAWASTE project participated in two African events on
Municipal wastewater.
1. UNEP/GPA Second Regional Consultative Meeting on Municipal Wastewater Management
From 7-8 March 2003, SEAWASTE attended the Second Regional Consultative Meeting on Municipal Wastewater Management in Mombasa, co-organised by the GPA Coordination Office and the West Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA). Fifteen representatives from Tanzania, Kenya, Seychelles, Mozambique, South Africa and the Netherlands met to identify demonstration projects that illustrate innovative approaches to municipal wastewater management in Eastern Africa.
Through interactive discussions, participants were granted the opportunity to present, discuss and prioritise project proposals dealing with municipal wastewater, according to commonly accepted selection criteria. A list of projects proposed at the First Consultative Meeting (Dar Es Salaam, 1991) was then updated to include new proposals from the region. Two proposals from Tanzania and Zanzibar were later selected by the GPA Office to receive further funding support, after favourable comments were raised by the workshop group.
The meeting enabled participants to share technical, scientific and financial expertise and created a wider awareness of the SEAWASTE networking project. Calls were frequently made for the network to serve as an information and communication resource to those involved in wastewater management. Positive working relations that were developed at the workshop will help to ensure that the network pays more attention in future to wastewater issues in Africa.
2. UNEP/GPA Pilot Training course on Municipal Wastewater Management
The GPA Coordination Office, WIOMSA and the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, held a training course on municipal wastewater management in Zanzibar, from 17-21 March 2003. The overall objective of the training programme is to improve the performance of municipalities to provide adequate sanitation and reduce the discharge of untreated municipal wastewater. To achieve this, the course included lectures and group discussions on such topics as the design, finance and implementation of projects, the identification and use of appropriate technologies and effective cooperation between stakeholders.
The course commenced with a prioritisation exercise in which participants put concrete management-related problems into perspective through peer-to-peer discussions and report-backs. This was followed by a series of lectures and group exercises on water quality management,Re-use and cleaner production approaches, stakeholder analysis and institutional arrangements. Participants were also able to interact with representatives from the local fisheries department and tourism industry and were taken on a field trip to meet representatives involved in a storm water drainage community project. The GPA Office is planning to further develop the course to comply with UN/DOALOS Train-Sea-Coast standards for materials-based training. Further details can be obtained from
http://www.gpa.unep.org/training/
For information about the SEAWASTE Network, see http://seawaste.uwc.ac.za/
Staff
Profile: Deidre Bester
Computer Programmer at IOI-SA
 Her name is Deidré Bester and she is 24 years of age. She was born in Somerset West and lived in Kensington and Mitchell's Plain and currently resides in Silver Oaks, Kuilsriver. She attended Immaculata Senior Secondary and went on to
complete her Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Statistics at the University of the Western Cape. Her subjects included Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Applied mathematics and Physics. She also did a course in ASP (Active Server Pages), Visual Basic and a Business objects course. She intends studying further since she needs to be updated about the latest technology in her field.
Deidré has been working as a computer programmer at IOI-SA for just over a year where she creates websites, assists with maintenance of websites, debugging of sites and writes, tests and maintains code for programmes according to the specifications set out by project managers and other programmers in the team. She also updates, repairs, modifies and expands existing programmes. If that confuses you then enjoy being able to surf a website without any problems and realize that its people like her who create all of that so that the rest of us can just enjoy the ride! Projects she has worked on include PIM2002,
KEWL, SEAWASTE, the Seaweed Africa Database, Ukuvuka and IOI-VU. Computer programming may be a man's world, but 'it ain't nothing' without this woman. She can hold her own in a male-dominated field. She would like to be an analyst programmer or project leader in the next 5 years. She says that she does not want to be a project manager because she would be bored if she could not do 'hands-on' work.
She is a young woman who is full of life, likes hanging out with friends and having girl-talk, enjoys watching movies and listening to music, preferably jazz, RnB or hip-hop. Her ultimate favourite musician and person is her brother, Fabian. Her favourite music artist is Tamia and her latest favourite movie is "Enough", starring Jennifer Lopez. Where junk food is concerned she likes hot chips and chocolates, and although she just loves vegetables she is not a vegetarian. She also sketches still life pictures and wild cats using charcoal, pencil or oil pastels. Did we mention that she does calligraphy too? She does certificates for clubs and various committees and posters, advertisements and backdrops for functions as well. We would like to see some of her work!! Deidré is doing a 3-year spiritual dancing course at Kingdom Dance Academy at the moment as well since she works with children as a catechist. She just loves them to bits. Netball is her favourite sport to play and watch since the age of 5. Other sports she enjoys watching
is gymnastics, figure skating, athletics and soccer.
| Did
you know? |
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Julius Sterling Morton, a member of the Nebraska Board of Agriculture in the United States, founded Arbor Day. He asked for one day to be set aside for planting trees to help save the Great Western Plains as the region had been almost totally cleared of trees. As a result the world's first Arbor Day was held in Nebraska on 10 April 1872.
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September 16th has been designated World Ozone Day by the United Nations, with the goal of continuing the awareness and monitoring of the condition of the ozone layer surrounding the Earth. Several years ago there was a discovery of subsequent widening of several "ozone holes" around the globe and the public must continue to be alerted to the dangers posed by the depletion of the ozone layer.
- So what exactly is ozone anyway? It was is a chemical molecule made up of three oxygen atoms (O3). Ozone was discovered in 1840 by German chemist Christian Schönbein who found that it was formed mainly by the action of ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun on breathable oxygen in the atmosphere. Most of the ozone in the atmosphere is concentrated in a thin layer some 24-30 kilometres (15-20 miles) above the ground and acts as a sort of sunscreen for the planet, absorbing UV radiation from the sun and up to 99% of the UV light from the Sun which enters Earth's atmosphere does not go beyond this layer. All life on the planet is therefore spared the effects of this radiation, which has been linked to skin cancer and eye damage in humans, reduced crop yields in agriculture and the disruption of marine and freshwater environments.
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IOI-SA News
IOI-SA recently received an IOI Women and the Sea Grant funded by the Ocean Science and Research Foundation. Activities within this programme are primarily directed towards the training of women university-level students in ocean-related fields, and the promotion of sustainable coastal livelihoods. An exciting new project related to these funds is the "Sustainable Livelihoods on the Coast: A Public Awareness Campaign". This project is aimed at promoting sustainable coastal livelihoods initiatives to a wide audience through the production of brochures designed to provide people with a better understanding of the concept of sustainable livelihoods.
Another exciting project is nearing completion and IOI-SA eagerly awaits the public's response to the final product. The West Coast Cookbook Project was an idea developed by IOI-SA after being approached by the Saldanha branch of the Bergrivier Vissersvroue Vereeniging who needed assistance in establishing some job and income creation activities. IOI-SA approached Mrs Ina Paarman of Paarman foods to collaborate on this initiative who in turn brought Struik Publishers aboard. More than just a recipe book, the West Coast Cookbook is a historical look at how people of the West Coast survived during the early years. The manuscript is now with the Publishers and will be in bookshops mid -2003.
Our worm lady, Dr Ceri Lewis, from the UK, arrived in 2002 to start research work on the Bloodworm and Wonderworm.
Arenicola loveni (Bloodworm) and Marphysa sanguinea (Wonderworm), which are considered potential candidates for aquaculture. An essential pre-requisite for the successful aquaculture of any species is a thorough understanding of their reproductive biology, including the hormonal maturation of gametes and experimental induction of spawning. Research is currently underway into the reproductive biology and ecology of
A. loveni and M. sanguinea with the aim of developing techniques for intensive culture of these species as part of a community based mariculture project.
The Seaweed Africa project is a multi-national project to expand AlgaeBase, a biodiversity database of seaweed information, to include
additional information for the seaweeds of the whole of Africa. This three -year project is generously funded by the European Union under the INCO-DEV section of the Fifth Framework Programme and began in November 2001. The project will include information for useful and potentially useful African seaweed species.
(http://www.seaweedAFRICA.org)
The Southern and East Africa Waste (SEAWASTE) Networking project was initiated in April 1998, when forty African professional met in Cape Town, to discuss waste management and marine pollution prevention issues relevant to the region. In May 2001, a second workshop was held under the auspices of the International Maritime Organisation, which sketched out the purpose, scope and constituency of the network. IOI-SA has subsequently taken up the task to further develop and host the network for a period of 18 months (For latest developments see
http://seawaste.uwc.ac.za/)
In December of 2002 IOI-SA hosted the international Pacem in Maribus Conference at the University of the Western Cape. This conference is held every year under the auspices of the International Ocean Institute and the theme for the 2002 conference was "The Ocean in the new economy". Delegates included the Directors of IOI centers across the globe, Dr Awni Benham (Senior Advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) and Mr Horst Kleinschmidt (Deputy Director-General of Marine and Coastal Management,
Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism) amongst others.
| Environmental
Days/Weeks: |
- National Arbour
Day: 6 September
- World Ozone Day:
16 September
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Enquiries:
Editors:
Tanya Potts Tel. +27 21 959 2594 tpotts@uwc.ac.za
Lucille Oliphant Tel. +27 21 959 2342 loliphant@uwc.ac.za
Deidre Bester Tel. +27 21 959 3782 dbester@uwc.ac.za
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