This session aims to highlight recent local research, which provides useful perspectives and insights into the long term changes in savanna structure with regard to bush encroachment, as well as the drivers of the process. The session also aims to provide some useful and thought provoking management perspectives, regarding the current and future challenges.

Download the final programme for this session here.

Session Programme

Session Chair: to be confirmed

Keynote Address: Prof William Bond

Carbon dioxide and other global change influences versus local drivers

Mr James Puttick

An analysis of woody cover change in the mesic eastern region of South Africa using repeat photography

Ms Jennifer Russell

Vegetation change in Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, since the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879

Ms Janet Taylor

Assessing Acacia nilotica establishment on long-term monitoring sites, uMkhuze Game Reserve

Mr Mmoto Masubelele

Long-term vegetation change (1900-2010) in the Karoo Midlands biomes with climate and land use as drivers change

Mr Dave Joubert

Are fires less important in arid areas?

Ms Michelle Tedder

Tree-grass competition along a catenal gradient in a mesic grassland, South Africa

Prof Nico Smit

Restoration versus wood utilization - a potential conflict of interest in dealing with bush thickened areas in the Northern Cape

Mr Dave Joubert

Tools and strategies for combating bush encroachment. A case history of the development of an expert system for bush encroachment in Namibia. Successes, failures and challenges for the future