It was great to read in a recent article in the Daily Maverick, by Kristin Engel (published on 31 October 2023) that Honorable Minister Barbara Creecy has some of our publications on her reading list. ALSA will ensure that she receives new publications as they are published (by ALSA).
Barbara Creecy is the Minister of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment of the Republic of South Africa (www.gov.za). In the featured image Ria Olivier (Principal Investigator of ALSA hands over four books to her during the World Oceans Day event held at DFFE: Directorate Southern Oceans & Antarctica Support (at the East Pier, Port of Cape Town).
In the article by Daily Maverick:
“So what is on Creecy’s reading list and has she in fact read them? The minister received four books, valued at a total of R2,150, from the Antarctic Legacy South Africa on 8 June 2023 for World Oceans Day: Exploring a Sub-Antarctic Wilderness; Gough Island; ANT{INK}TICA; and The Prince Edward Island.”
“I really like these books because I have visited Antarctica and I have a deep interest in the South Africa National Antarctic Program, particularly the research program on the sub-Antarctic Prince Edward Islands that presents one of the most significant longitudinal data sets stretching back over three-quarters of a century.”
Since South Africa annexed the Prince Edward Islands in 1948, South African researchers have been undertaking regular expeditions to the Antarctic Continent, the Prince Edward Islands and Gough Island, as well as elsewhere in the Southern Ocean. ALSA aims to preserve the rich human history of the expeditions conducted over the past 70 years.
Aside from the results of biological and physical research, the expeditions have produced a wealth of photographs, videos, written and oral accounts. ALSA collates, digitises and archive these records.
The ALSA website serves as a public portal to provide access to this information, which currently stands at over 25000 records.
ALSA aims to preserve the legacy for future generations and apart from the digital repository it is involved in the publishing of books.
Below a list of the books available form ALSA.
Note: The Island Books have been published before ALSA became a publisher on its own.
- The Prince Edward Islands; Land-sea interaction in a changing ecosystem (2008) S.L. Chown & P.W. Froneman.
- Marion and Prince Edward; Africa’s Southern Islands (2010) A. Terauds, J. Cooper, S.L. Chown & P. Ryan.
- Gough Island; A Natural (2005) C. Hanel, S.L. Chown & K.J. Gaston.
ALSA as Publisher:
- Exploring a sub-Antarctic Wilderness: A Personal narrative of the first biological and geological expedition to Marion and Prince Edward lslands-1965-1966 (2016) B.J. Huntley.
- Katjagter; ‘n eilandstorie (2017) E. Nortje.
- Pain forms the Character; Doc Bester, Cat Hunters and Sealers (2017) N. de Bruyn & C. Oosthuizen.
- The White Horizon (2017) N.J. van der Merwe.
- The Gough Kitchen; remote island recipe’s dished up by Gough- 2017-2018 (2018) Gough 63 overwintering team.
- SANAE Recipe Booklet (2018) SANAE 57 overwintering team.
- Antin{k}tika (2019) J. Verheul.
- Over the Horizon (2022) J. Brundrit.
If you want to obtain copies of these publications, please contact me at riaolivier@sun.ac.za.
Some ALSA publishing highlights:
In 2017 “Pain forms the Character” a homage to veteran SANAP biologist Marthán Bester of a book compiled by Nico de Bruyn and Chris Oosthuizen.
The first book published by ALSA was ”Exploring a sun-Antarctic Wilderness: A Personal narrative of the first biological and geological expedition to Marion and Prince Edward lslands-1965-1966”. 2016.B.J. Huntley.
The Antarctic Legacy of South Africa (ALSA) project, based at the Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University and funded by the National Research Foundation as part of the South African National Antarctic Program. In collaboration with Stellenbosch University Library a collection of Antarctic publications is hosted by the library. In promoting the legacy, ALSA with the Department of Botany and Zoology donated 1000 publications as part of the Universities’ 100-year celebrations. These books have been donated to institutions, government department and libraries in and outside South Africa. ALSA has a responsibility in South Africa and our neighboring countries by donating these publications as South Africa is the only country in the Africa Continent that is currently Involved in the Antarctic.
