Rafa Calderon captures a selfie of our evening stroll in Stellenbosch at the PECS working group meeting, June 2023.
I was delighted to represent NSERC ResNet at the first in-person PECS working group meeting since 2017 that was held over the first week in June in lovely Stellenbosch, South Africa. ResNet is the North American regional network of PECS, and my role was primarily to talk to PECS members about how ResNet is structured and what we are doing, and identify places of connection to individual working groups. I also was there to listen to people’s hopes for the 2024 PECS conference that is planned for Montreal next summer, which ResNet will be hosting. I spent most of my time connecting to the SES Methods and Institutional modelling working groups, with a bit of discussion with the T4T. Thanks to Oonsie and Alta and their great team at Stellenbosch University for their generosity, and the lovely Devon Valley Hotel and Helena’s for such great food and hospitality.
Colourful Cape Town scenes.
In amidst the hard work, we were treated to a food tour of Cape Town, culminating in an amazing Cape Malay meal at the Biesmiellah Restaurant in colourful Bo-Kaap (see above, top right). If only we had been more hungry! Table Mountain remained elusive throughout, but I was struck by the scale of informal settlements we encountered. We also visited the impressive Blaauwberg Nature Reserve, a historic site of battles military and ecological. The latter is the battle against invasive Australian trees such as the wattle, which can be seen in the background of the image below (bottom left), to let the native ‘fynbos’ (or fine wood) vegetation to thrive. We heard from passionate ecologists and volunteers in persistent rainy-season weather. Later on, close to the hotel, I got to see some fynbos ecosystem with a mature protea overstory (bottom right). Before flying out I had a half-day in Stellenbosch proper, enjoying good coffee and melktert (milk tart), the botanic gardens at the university, and the Stellenbosch Village Museum, a mix between a re-enactment visit and a walking tour, with four houses restored and ‘animated’ to their period. Such museums always take me back to my teen years working at Kings Landing.
Native regeneration at Blaauwberg (left) and proteas at Stellenbosch (right).
