The University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) is collaborating with tree climbing experts from Germany and Australia to enhance the nation’s research into tree canopy and ecology.
“Through these interactions, the UENR will soon become the hub of canopy research in Africa,” Professor Elvis Asare-Bediako, the Vice Chancellor of UENR stated when he welcomed the experts to the university.
They were Vicki Tough, tree climbing instructor at the Sylvana Alta Tree climbing training school for scientists, Germany, Sam Hardingham, Arborist-Tree climbing instructor and the Director, Everydayarbor, Australia, and Steven Pearce, the Director, Thretreeprojects.com, Australia.
The experts are the university to train the institution’s researchers and students of the Department of Biological Sciences on tree climbing and canopy research.
“If you want to study the details of the kind of ecological interactions, then you need to climb and get there and climbing the branches requires skills.
So you can see that studying at the canopy is a key and climbing requires skills, unfortunately in Africa we do not have these experts so through this collaboration our university is going to be the hub of research in terms of forest research,” Prof Asare-Bediako stated.
The Vice Chancellor said the university was happy for that collaboration, saying “in ecological research we study the forest community, and the forest has complexities,” adding that with the experts, the university would advance in forest canopy research.
“Last year they were here, and we did some kind of interactions, and their arrival today shows that very soon our university is going to produce the experts in Africa,” he stated.
Touching on the training, Dr Bismarck Ofosu-Bamfo, an Ecologist at the UENR’s Department of Biological Sciences told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) other researchers from Gabon Rwanda and Guinea were attending the training to be held between April 9 and April 18. The visitors later donated some scientific equipment, including drone cameras, worth $6,000 to the university.
Source: GNA
