Download the updated programme here: OLNP programme
We would like to extend a special thanks to our guest speakers:
Mr Saliem Fakir
Head: Living Planet Unit, WWF South Africa
Saliem Fakir is an independent writer and columnist for SACSIS based in Cape Town. He is currently active in the sustainable energy field and works for the World Wide Fund for Nature. Saliem Fakir was previously (2007-2008) a senior lecturer at the Department of Public Administration and Planning and associate Director for the Center for Renewable and Sustainable Energy at the University of Stellenbosch where he taught a course on renewable energy policy and financing of renewable energy projects. Saliem Fakir previously worked for Lereko Energy (Pty) Ltd (2006) an investment company focusing on project development and financial arrangements for renewable energy, biofuels, waste and water sectors. He also served as Director of the World Conservation Union South Africa (IUCN-SA) office for 8 years (1998-2005). Prior to the IUCN he was the Manager for the Natural Resources and Management Unit at the Land and Agriculture Policy Center. Saliem served on a number of Boards. Between, 2002-2005, he served as a chair of the Board of the National Botanical Institute. He also served on the board of the Fair Trade in Tourism Initiative, and was a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Global Reporting Initiative, based in Amsterdam. He currently serves of the advisory board of Inspired Evolution One – a private equity fund for clean technology. Saliem’s qualifications are: B.Sc Honours molecular biology (WITS), Masters’ in Environmental Science, Wye College London, and did a senior executive management course at Harvard University in 2000.
Prof. Cherryl Walker
Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, University of Stellenbosch
Cherryl Walker is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Stellenbosch University. She has extensive research and applied experience in land, development and gender studies in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Her most recent books are Landmarked; Land Claims and Land Restitution in South Africa (2008) and Land, Memory, Reconstruction and Justice: Perspectives on Land Claims in South Africa (2010, co-edited with A Bohlin, R Hall and T Kepe). She is also the author of Women and Resistance in South Africa (1982, 1991) and co-author of The Surplus People; Forced Removals in South Africa (1985, with L Platzky). In 2008 she served on an Expert Consultative Team that advised the AU Commission on the drafting of a continent-wide ’Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa’. She has undertaken field-based research on HIV/AIDS and women’s land rights in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa, as well as policy research on women’s land rights in the continent, including a synthesis study for the African Women Rights’ Observatory of the Economic Commission for Africa. From 1995 to 2000 she served on South Africa’s Commission on Restitution of Land Rights as Regional Land Claims Commissioner for the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Current research interests centre on the significance of land as a material, social and political resource, including the interaction between the bio-physical and the social in South African history.
Mrs Luzann Isaacs
Area Manager: Edith Stephens Wetland Park, Biodiversity Management, City of Cape Town.
Luzann studied for a National Diploma in Nature Conservation from Cape Technikon between 2000 and 2005. During her field work year in 2004 she was employed by a partnership project called Cape Flats Nature, based at the National Biodiversity Institute (now known as the South African National Biodiversity Institute – SANBI). Cape Flats Nature’s main objective was to develop a best practice for how naure reserve managers could work with community partners by encouraging or facilitating partnerships that were empowering for both parties. Luzann was then based at the Harmony Flats Nature Reserve in Somerset West, Cape Town. As a Capetonian, and having always lived in a urban space, Luzann was excited about the opportunity to bring conservation into the communities that she knew. In 2005 Luzann became the site manager of Edith Stephens Wetland Park in the middle of the Cape Flats, still employed by the Cape Flats Nature partnership, to further look at building bridges with communities. In 2006 the post was adopted by the City of Cape Town, and Luzann’s work was expanded towards contributing to the objectives of the Biodiversity Network policy. As from 2010 the City of Cape Town has expanded the area of responsibility for its reserve managers, who are now looking at the management of natural and semi-natural areas that could assist to meet vegetation conservation targets for the City of Cape Town.
Prof. Sam Moyo
Sam Moyo is professor and the executive director of the African Institute for Agrarian Studies (AIAS) based in Harare, Zimbabwe. He has more than 28 years of research and lecturing experience on rural development issues with a focus on land reform, agrarian change, environmental policy, and social movements. He has lectured at the universities of Calabar and Port Harcourt in Nigeria, and at the University of Zimbabwe, and in various international training programmes. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at University of Fort Hare in South Africa, and an external examiner of various universities in Zimbabwe and South Africa. He has been associated with the Institute of Development Studies of the University of Zimbabwe and ZERO (A Regional Environment Organisation) all based in Harare. He has worked as an Associate Professor at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Zimbabwe and as a Director for the Southern African Regional Institute for Policy Studies (SARIPS) based in Harare, Zimbabwe. He has worked as a senior advisor on land policy matters concerning various governments in the southern Africa region and also as vice-president of CODESRIA located in Senegal. He has acted as senior advisor and chair of numerous land networks such as the Southern African Network on Land (SANL), Land Rights Network of Southern Africa (LRNSA), and Knowledge Management Africa–Development Bank of Southern Africa (KMA-DBSA). He is the current President of CODESRIA and also serves in the various boards including: HAKIARDHI (Tanzania), International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs) in India, ZERO (Zimbabwe).
