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Southern African Mountain Conference a collective voice for sustainable development

25.03.2022

The Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2022) – a collective voice for the sustainable management of Southern African mountains – brought together a network of more than 200 delegates from across the globe to discuss a wide array of interventions to ensure the conservation of the ecosystem under global change on 14–17 March 2022.

The theme of SAMC2022 was “Southern African Mountains – Their value and vulnerabilities”. The conference was organized by the African Mountain Research Foundation, in association with the Afromontane Research Unit of the University of the Free State (UFS) and the Global Mountain Safeguard Research Programme (GLOMOS), in the majestic Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa and Lesotho.

Participants met virtually and physically to create a space for robust regional and international collaboration and comparative mountain studies with an increase in research activities, student capacity, researcher capacity, and academic outputs that feed into policy and action.

Francis Petersen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS, together with Shen Xiaomeng, United Nations University (UNU) Vice-Rector in Europe and Director of the UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security, officially opened the event. Ralph Clark, chairperson of the SAMC2022 local organizing committee and Director of the Afromontane Research Unit on the Qwaqwa Campus, said the conference presented an opportunity for new collaborations in transdisciplinary research.

In her message of support on behalf of the Mountain Partnership, Rosalaura Romeo of the Mountain Partnership Secretariat said, “This conference is an opportunity to focus on mountain-related research and to highlight the relevance of mountains for the Southern African region.” She underlined the strategic timing of SAMC2022 as a contribution to the International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development 2022.

The programme had six parallel tracks with about 200 papers delivered. In addition, there was a special session led by the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) and GEO Mountains on long-term monitoring activities and associated data availability for climate change-related applications across Africa’s mountains, as well as a special United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization session on regional collaboration.

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News by the University of the Free State

Photo: ©Muxe Dlomu