The Research Centre has always encouraged visits by university staff and senior students to stay as long as they like with accommodation provided at nominal cost. This has been taken up by many South African universities.
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Pretoria, the nearest University, has developed a substantial relationship with the Research Centre which has been formalised by a Memorandum of Cooperation recently signed between them and the Trust. Dr Greve writes movingly about how inspiring her students find their visits and how vital the Herbarium and its staff are to their studies.
Ecology
Ecologist Dr Michelle Greve from Pretoria University frequently brings parties of advanced and post-graduate students to the Research Centre. Currently projects are underway on the role of birds in seed dispersal and the resulting spread of forest trees, as well as associated seed and fungal studies.
Campus collaboration
Dr Clark, from the Qwa Qwa campus of the University of the Free State, is an expert on the phytogeography of the Afromontane biome. Buffelskloof staff are collaborating with Dr Clark on the upgrading of the existing herbarium facilities at the Qwa Qwa campus.
Staff and students from local universities, including Cape Town, Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Limpopo, Maputo, Port Elizabeth and Pietermaritzburg, as well as visitors from the USA, India and Europe, have recently studied a wonderful variety of subjects including:
Iron Age settlements, snakes, ants, bats, forest succession, fungi, orchids and numerous plant families – all in their natural habitat within Buffelskloof’s relatively undisturbed ecosystem.
It is this amazing variety of subjects together with world class expertise at hand that is uniquely valuable to environmental education worldwide