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Conference presentations ranged from an assessment of fuel wood harvesting as a contributor to deforestation to sediment sources and the rate of sedimentation within the Bushman's River Estuary.
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Miriam Murambadoro from the SARVA Outreach team addressed the students on global change, risk and vulnerability.
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Miriam Murambadoro, CSIR Natural Resources and the Environment
As part of its stakeholder outreach programme, the South African Risk and Vulnerability Atlas (SARVA) was introduced to geography students at the Society of South African Geographers' Students Conference hosted by the University of the Witwatersrand.
The conference was attended by university students from Limpopo, Venda, Western Cape, Free State, Rhodes, Nelson Mandela Metro, Pretoria and Wits University among others. There were more than 100 presentations by students on their geography-related work, ranging from an assessment of fuel wood harvesting as a contributor to deforestation to sediment sources and the rate of sedimentation within the Bushman's River Estuary.
Miriam Murambadoro from the SARVA Outreach team presented the Atlas to students and encouraged them to use it as it provides them with new and relevant knowledge on global change, as well as risk and vulnerability in human and natural environments. It also seeks to develop human capacity that is required in responding to the Department of Science and Technology's Global Change Grand Challenge as a useful source of information.
Students were included in SARVA's stakeholder outreach process because they play a crucial part in transforming South Africa into a knowledge-based economy.
University representatives at the conference received copies of the Atlas and were encouraged to visit the SARVA website and spatial data portal for more detailed information. Since the conference the SARVA team has received several requests from university libraries for more copies of the Atlas to be used by students.
Keynote speakers at the conference included Dr Dan Hammett, a lecturer in human geography at the University of Sheffield in the UK and Simon Gear, an expert in corporate sustainability and modern environmental thought.
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