World acclaimed scientists, Bob and Mary Scholes will talk on Climate change. Saturday 19 March, 11h00, at Papillon Wakkerstroom. Their new book Climate Change Briefings from Southern Africa will be on sale as well.
The book summarizes important knowledge gathered around global change and its impact in the Southern African region. It points out that this region has over the past century warmed up at a rate of about twice the global average.
The talk will introduce the sometimes complex science of Earth’s climate to people for whom it is most relevant…the ordinary, interested parties outside of the scientific community
Tickets will sell at R50. Bob and Mary have a home in Wakkerstroom and are passionate about the Wakkerstroom Music Festival. Apart from their yearly donations as friends of the WMF, this talk will be a fundraiser and all ticket sales will entirely go towards the WMF.
Advanced bookings will start on 22 Feb. Keep a look out for the bookings forms on the WMF website, www.wmfestival.co.za
Biographical Sketch – Prof Mary Scholes
Prof Mary Scholes, a graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, is currently a full professor in the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences and serves as the Director of the Graduate Affairs at Wits. Her research activities focus on soil fertility, food security and biogeochemistry in savannas, plantation forests and croplands. Her research funds are mostly sourced from industry and the government and she is currently actively involved in monitoring the impacts, on human health and the environment, of the new power stations in the Waterberg. She chairs the advisory boards of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis. She is also a member of the jury for the Volvo Environment Prize. These activities involve extensive collaborative research with a number of overseas and local institutes. Her publication record is extensive; she has mentored over 70 postgraduate students and she teaches at postgraduate level at the University. She has been awarded the Vice-Chancellors Teaching, Research and Academic Citizen awards. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa and of the South African Academy of Science. She is the recipient of a number of national and international awards including being elected as a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. She has served on Senate at Wits for over 25 years and has served on Council for two terms. She is married to Bob Scholes, a systems ecologist, and they have a 19 year old son.
RJ (Bob) Scholes: Biographical Sketch
Prof Bob Scholes is a systems ecologist with a particular interest in the savannas of Africa. He trained under Prof Brian Walker at the University of the Witwatersrand and Prof Pedro Sanchez at North Carolina State University and has over three decades of field experience in many parts of Africa and the world. He is among the top 1% of environmental scientists worldwide based on citation frequency, publishing widely in the fields of savanna ecology, global change, and earth observation. He has led several high-profile studies (eg the Assessment of Elephant Management, Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, Strategic Assessment of Shale Gas Development) and large research campaigns (eg SAFARI 2000, Southern African Millennium Assessment). He is or has been a member of the steering committee of several International Council of Scientific Unions research programmes. He was an author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 3rd, 4th and 5th assessments and was co-chair of the Conditions Working Group of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and is co-Chair of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services assessment of Land Degradation. He has been a member of the steering committees of several global earth observation bodies: Global Climate Observing System; Global Terrestrial Observing System (chair), Group on Earth Observation (GEO) Implementation Planning Task Team, GEO Biodiversity Observation Network (chair). He has been on the boards of the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry, the South African National Parks and South African National Space Agency. He is a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the CSIR, Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, Member of the South African Academy, a Research Associate of the CSIR, an NRF A-rated scientist, and a winner of the National Science and Technology Forum Lifetime Contribution to Science Award.