Prof. Glyn Vale honoured for tsetse fly control

June 2008
NRI’s Visiting Professor of Insect Behaviour, Glyn Vale, has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.  Glyn, who is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, receives the award “for services to controlling and eradicating tsetse flies in Africa”, a task to which he has devoted most of his professional effort and expertise for four decades.

Glyn Vale is currently a very active Visiting Professor at NRI, and he has for many years worked with NRI’s applied research entomologists as a collaborator and consultant on the management of tsetse fly as a major disease vector in Africa.  His initial research, starting in the late 1960s, focused on the improvement of tsetse trapping methods for assessing the effectiveness of baiting techniques for tsetse, and the unobtrusive electrocuting grids that he developed showed that previous methods had produced misleading results and that odour attraction was far more important than previously believed.  Since then he has worked with many other researchers in Africa and Europe to improve 100-fold the cost-effectiveness of artificial baiting of tsetse, and to develop integrated management systems based on a combination of artificial baits and selective insecticide-dipping of cattle.  Where these approaches have been implemented, they have removed the need for the former widespread annual spraying with DDT.  The beneficial environmental impact of this work won Prof. Vale recognition by the World Technology Network in 2003 when he was announced as a Finalist in the World Technology Awards for the Environment.

NRI is delighted to congratulate Glyn on the award of an OBE for his major contribution to the control and eradication of tsetse in Africa.  It is a fitting recognition of the many years of distinguished service he has devoted to scientific research and development to combat this vector of the fatal diseases of sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in livestock.

NRI successfully hosts DSA/DFID Policy Forum

June 2008
On 2 June, NRI successfully hosted the DSA/DFID Policy Forum - International Development in the Face of Climate Change: Beyond Mainstreaming. More information on the Forum and its outcomes can be found on the website at http://climateanddevelopment.nri.org

University announces grant from Gates Foundation to boost incomes of poorest farmers in Africa

April 2008

An initiative, C:AVA - Cassava: Adding Value for Africa ,led by the University of Greenwich's Natural Resources Institute in close partnership with organisations in five African countries - Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi - aims to significantly boost the incomes of small-scale African farmers by linking them to new markets. More information can be found on the website at http://cava.nri.org.

Baroness Blackstone Visits NRI Collaborators in Ghana

February 2008

The University of Greenwich’s Vice-Chancellor Tessa Blackstone learnt about the production, processing and marketing of cassava during her recent visit to Ghana. The VC was visiting Accra to see aspects of the University’s Tabeisa Project, which recently won a Queen's Anniversary Prize for its work in encouraging entrepreneurship in Africa. While there, she also visited some of NRI’s collaborators in research and development projects on the key staple crop cassava, as well as our colleagues in capacity building for agricultural research more generally.

Tessa Blackstone finds out about cassava in the field, at market and in a rural processing plant, in Ghana © University of Greenwich

Baroness Blackstone had meetings with Dr Monty Jones, the Executive Secretary of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and members of his team. She visited NRI’s fellow scientists at the Food Research Institute (FRI), where she signed a memorandum of understanding that recognizes and enhances the long-established collaborative links between NRI and FRI. Tessa Blackstone also saw at first-hand the production and marketing system for cassava in visits to cassava farms and small-scale processing plants to the north of Accra.

For more information on NRI’s work on cassava in Ghana, contact Prof. Andrew Westby (A.Westby@gre.ac.uk)

Chinese Conservation Ecologists Visit NRI

February 2008

Between November 2007 and early February 2008, NRI was delighted to welcome eight trainees from the People’s Republic of China, who attended courses in Conservation Ecology, Tools for Sustainability and Tropical Forest Ecology and Management. All the trainees work in aspects of conservation and forestry for the Chinese government and were selected from eight different provinces across China. During their time at NRI they had the opportunity to revise some basic aspects of their subjects as well as learn about more recent advances and case studies.

Chinese students on the completion of their courses in Conservation Ecology, pictured here with Prof. Andrew Westby (Director of Research amd Enterprise), Dr. Peter Burt, Ms Claire Coote and Dr. Colin Tingle. © University of Greenwich

On successful completion of their studies, they were presented with course certificates by Professor Andrew Westby, Director of Research and Enterprise (centre bottom). Also pictured are Dr Peter Burt (middle), leader of the MSc Natural Resources programme, and two of the course lecturers, Ms Claire Coote and Dr Colin Tingle.