People and Parks Project

Through a partnership with Pennsylvania State University (U.S.A.), the University of Cape Town and the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency (ECPTA) the Parks and People project has been a success each year. The Parks and People project enables Penn State and UCT to collaborate on research and community based educational programs in the Eastern Cape. The field work is based around the concept of “Parks and People” and engages with the physical and social environment; how the nature reserve engages in its mission in the context of the competing interests of the poverty and rural society, and the commercial resource demands. We take a selected class of participants for a week to join the PSU students in the field to work with them, and also benefit from their professors who are with them. Students gain experience and knowledge in meteorology and climate forcing on the environment, extreme events, environmental gradients, landuse landcover change, resource conflict, rural development, coastal resource management, catchment management, soil erosion and environmental degradation, impact of policy frameworks, various remote sensing and GIS applications, management of coastal marine resources and more. This year we will be broadening the project with the intension of developing a science plan for the area. This ties into the Living Labs concept discussed last year together with ACCESS.