Top student presentations

The second day of the Indibano provided an opportunity for delegates to present their own research, with Professor Tris Wooldridge from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University adjudicating. Ancois de Villiers from the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Stellenbosch won the prize for the best presentation for her talk entitled Holistic Management: Considering “wholes within wholes” in rangelands.

A “People’s Choice Award” -- for the best presentation voted for by the delegates -- was awarded to Nicholas Moyo from the University of KwaZulu-Natal whose talk was entitled Seasonal variation of surface energy fluxes above a mixed species and spatially homogeneous grassland.

That evening, guest speaker Professor Martin Villet from Rhodes University provided a fascinating talk on Entomology.

On the third day, delegates were given a guided tour of the Addo Elephant National Park, which encompasses five of South Africa’s nine biomes. In the afternoon Indibano delegates were given the opportunity to observe the National Fish Collection at the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity and were given a tour of the SAEON Elwandle Node premises in Grahamstown.

Later that evening, special guest speaker Professor Charlie Shackleton, Head of the Department of Environmental Science at Rhodes University gave a motivating and inspirational presentation.