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Our World at Risk
One of the outcomes of UCT’s long-standing association
with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR) was the awarding of the ACCESS Centre of
Excellence in 2010. This is hosted by the CSIR but is
a joint initiative with UCT and several other partner
institutions. In 2012 UCT received R4.65 million from
ACCESS across seven themes, of which R3 million was
earmarked for bursaries. Many of the ACCESS students
funded by ACCESS are affiliated with Ma-Re.
Also working in this area is the Nansen-Tutu Centre for
Marine Environmental Research, which was established
in 2010 with the founding partners including Ma
‐
Re and
the Department of Oceanography, ACCESS, the Nansen
Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre (NERSC), the
Institute of Marine Research Centre for Development
Co-operation in Fisheries, the University of Bergen
(Norway), and Princeton University.
The centre’s aim is to contribute to developing and
implementing operational oceanography and data-
assimilation methods around Southern Africa, including the
South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and the Southern Ocean.
Its main focus areas are ocean state, marine environmental
and ecosystem modelling (including climate and global
teleconnections), research and capacity building.
In 2012 the Nansen Tutu Centre funded two African MSc
Students (Joseph Amollo and Francisco Francisco) and two
postdoctoral research fellows (Drs Bjorn Backeberg and
Issufo Halo). The Nansen Tutu Centre also contributed to
theMESOBIOproject, which is amultinational collaboration
on marine research in the Mozambique Channel.
The centre contributes to various successful programmes
and projects, such as the African Coelacanth Ecosystem
Programme, and personnel also teach in the Applied
Marine Science and Ocean Climate Dynamics master’s
degrees and the Oceanography Honours course.
Exploring Deep Waters
Ma-Re BASICS is the focal research activity of Ma-Re.
The four-year initiative began in mid-2010 and is funded
from a number of sources, the main one being the
Vice-Chancellor’s strategic initiative fund for the project
Marine multi-scale data and models: the key to predicting
climate variability in Africa and its biological and social
consequences.
It is structured as a network of research
across multiple disciplines, departments and faculties at
UCT. BASICS provides the umbrella framework to link
diverse projects on marine social and ecological systems.
Some of these are listed in this section to give an indication
of the breadth of research under way.
Research Project
The initial aimof Ma
‐
Re BASICS was to provide students
and researchers with a common identity, a common
goal and a supportive, stimulating and informative
research environment. During 2011 and 2012 a number
of events were organised to stimulate and encourage
communication, awareness and collaboration among
staff and students undertaking diverse individual
projects. Ma
‐
Re held a series of focused discussions,
such as the “themed lunch” on a marine law theme,
led by Professors Jan Glazewski and Loretta Feris of
the Institute of Marine and Environmental Law. The
discussions during this first themed lunch resulted
in further discussion and a collated response to the
recent Green Paper on the
National Environmental
Management of the Ocean
.
One of the outcomes of UCT’s long-
standing association with the Council
for Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR) was the awarding of the ACCESS
Centre of Excellence in 2010.
St Helena Bay is a very productive
ocean region and a nursery ground for
many juvenile fish.