FROM THE EDITOR
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the first issue of Grassroots for 2018.
Inside you will find two reader’s letters, several international and local news articles
resembling the multi-disciplinary quality of the society, two feature articles and a
tribute to one of our late members, Dr Moto Lesoli.
As the GSSA we welcome divergent opinions and views on matters as this stimu-
lates discussion and engaging with topics. Grassroots is a semi-scientific publica-
tion that publishes articles with some data as is the case under the features sec-
tion. In the news section however there are various articles from trusted sources
covering a wide range of interests and opinions. Part of the mission statement of
Grassroots is to “provide a forum for debate and exchange of ideas”. Reader’s let-
ters creates a way to contribute to the debate and views on specific topics, and is
welcomed by Grassroots.
More in detail in this issue, we take a look at urban wildlife habitats, the biodiversity
damaging effect of fire control, Amazon trees as a major methane source, orna-
mental plant invasion, how climate change risks the world’s microbes, the second
hottest year, mapping tree cover, the TreeApp, precision farming, the value of pee,
global soil organic carbon map as a tool, the use of small fires on grazing manage-
ment, fynbos-monitoring, why proper bird records is important, the transition of
SA to a low carbon economy, how elephants can be stopped to trample trees, the
new natural science collections facility, the new Editor-in-Chief of the AJRFS, the
possibility of pasture-based dairy farms to be both environmentally friendly and
economically productive, and lastly a refresher course on how to write a proper
research abstract.
Lastly, this issue includes an announcement of the 53rd annual congress of the
Grassland Society of Southern Africa (Congress 53) to be held in Pretoria from the
22nd to the 27th of July 2018. A special thanks goes out to our sponsors of Con-
gress 53: Dow AgroSciences, Western Cape Gov-
ernment, ARC and UNISA.
I would like to invite you to submit your
news snippets, opinions, dates of impor-
tant events and feature articles to Grass-
roots – we would love to hear from you
all. It will also be good to keep track
of our members and hear of anyone
who has lately moved jobs. We would
also enjoy hearing from anyone who
has recently received a post graduate
achievement. Let’s make Grassroots a
hub of knowledge and excellence.
6
things to look
forward to in
this issue:
Why proper bird records are
important
Urban wildlife habitats
The biodiversity damaging effect
of fire control
How climate change risks the
world’s microbes
Mapping tree cover with the
TreeApp
How elephants can be stopped
to trample trees
Proud supporters
of Congress 53
Please feel free to forward any recom-
mendations with regards to layout and
content of Grassroots to me.
Thank you to those who contributed to this
issue – keep those articles coming.
Grassroots
Vol 18
No 1
Enjoy this one!
March 2018
02