Mitigating the impact of extreme climate change events

The OR Tambo Africa Research Chairs Initiative announced its first 10 research chair holders on 27 October. It is funded through a partnership between South Africa’s National Research Foundation, the Oliver and Adelaide Tambo Foundation, Canada’s International Development Research Centre and the national research grant-making councils of the countries hosting the chairholders.

The initiative, which will see chairs share almost US$15 million over five years and which was named in honour of the former African National Congress leader, Oliver Reginald Tambo, was announced in 2017 with the aim of meeting political, development and higher education objectives on the African continent.

Zengeziwe Msimang, chief executive officer of the Oliver and Adelaide Tambo Foundation, said the initiative reflects not only how committed Tambo was to pan-Africanism, but also to science and technology.

In the second of a series of interviews, University World News spoke to Earth and Environmental Sciences Professor Almeida Sitoe, one of the research chair holders at Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique.

UWN: At school, was there any specific person or moment which placed you on the path to become a research chair?

AAS: Although my mother had no formal education, she was the one who insisted that I go to school. At the age of 11 years, I had to travel 20km daily on foot to attend school. Later on, my elder brother, Simão, took me to Beira, where I had more facilities to get to school.

UWN: Where did you complete your undergraduate studies and in what field?

AAS: I studied forest engineering at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo.

UWN: How did your undergraduate studies prepare you for research?

AAS: My undergraduate studies provided me with the basic knowledge and skills to understand biological processes, forest ecosystems and computer programming, among others. It exposed me to the timber industry and forest operations as well as the science that links society to the forests.

UWN: When and how did you realise you want to work as a researcher?

AAS: I was discovered by Fernando Saravia, then head of department of forest engineering, who invited me to join the academic staff. I did not realise I was starting a long and rewarding career. It was not until the day I defended my PhD degree in forest science at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center in Costa Rica that Dr Gilberto Paez, the dean of the graduate school, said: “You are a great professor”. Then, I was more confident to develop my full research capacity.

UWN: What interesting issues are you currently working on?

AAS: My current research focuses on the interaction between forests and climate change. This includes understanding how forest ecosystems grow, what goods and services they provide to society, and how societies drive forest changes in terms of cover area. In the era of climate change, my research is focused on the potential of forests to assist society to mitigate climate change effects and adapt to climate change impacts.

UWN: Why is your field of research important?

AAS: Climate change is a reality. It is happening now, and it is affecting our livelihoods, with higher impact on the least developed countries and the most vulnerable members of the community. We chose to implement this research in an arid and semi-arid region, one of the most vulnerable. The Limpopo Basin (spread over Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe) is prone to drought resulting in the loss of lives, crops and property, and drought has a negative impact on local and national economies. This research will assist in identifying options to minimise the impact of extreme climate events.

UWN: How do you see your field of research developing as a result of the OR Tambo Africa Research Chairs Initiative?

AAS: This research is bringing the ecosystem components and society together. This implies that we have to establish a multidisciplinary research team. We aim to break these disciplinary barriers and evaluate potential emergent properties that cannot be understood by a single discipline.

UWN: What are your priorities as a research chair?

AAS: The priority of this chair is to consolidate the interdisciplinary research team, boost research capacity, improve the graduate studies (engage early career researchers) and strengthen collaboration with regional universities.

UWN: What will you be able to do that you could not do in the past without funding?

AAS: Without this funding we could not bring the interdisciplinary research team together to work towards a common objective.

UWN: What could be done to develop research capacity at the undergraduate level?

AAS: Young people have a high capacity to learn. It is at the undergraduate level where we have to identify talents, motivate and create conditions for them to engage in early career research.