- South Africa has been announced as hosts for the 35th International Geological Congress (IGC) in 2016. The announcement was made at the 33rd session of IGC in Oslo yesterday, after snatching a victory over other contenders.
SA's bid to host the 35th IGC was conceived as a bid for southern African region and thus has lobbied for support from all regional member states prior to the Oslo meeting.
"At the time of the bid, South Africa had the full support of Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Tanzania, and a process will now be set in motion to ensure that 35th IGC is a collaborative venture involving the earth science communities of all the states in the region," said IGC statement.
At the conference latest insights into processes has put more emphasis on climate change and its impact on natural earth system processes were dealt with, also taking into consideration the energy crisis and the potential of non-renewable resources such as oil, coal and uranium, to meet ever growing demand in the future.
Chief Executive Officer of the Council for Geoscience of South Africa, Thibedi Ramontja stressed need of a more concerted effort in building capacity among southern African states in the field of earth sciences.
He said the initiative was aimed at introducing a sustained effort in this regard that would draw on the vast expertise vested in the network of earth scientists under the umbrella of IGC and International Union of Geological Sciences.
In responding to the announcement that South Africa has won the bid to host IGC in 2016, both ambassador to Norway, Ismail Coovadia and Chairperson of the Council for Geosciences of South Africa, Professor Phuti Ngoepe, thanked voting delegates for trust and confidence they showed in South Africa to arrange future IGC and highlighted the importance of such an event not only to South Africa but the entire southern African region.
Ambassador Coovadia made a specific reference to the potential of an event of this nature in considerably strengthening scientific collaboration within the context of the India-Brazil-South Africa intergovernmental collaboration agreement.
IGC, which is the major meeting of world scientists held every four years, drew over 6000 scientists around the globe this year.
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