Sthembile is visiting us on a 6-month academic exchange program. She is a doctoral student in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town. Her candidature is associated with the Bio-Economy Research Chair which responds to the social and environmental dimensions of the bioeconomy. Her research explores the ways in which harvester communities in the biodiversity-rich Garden Route and Langkloof regions of South Africa have been marginalised and excluded from the use of honeybush in repressive regime, continuing through the current democratic regime. Sthembile is a STEPS-Centre summer school alumnus – a prestigious summer school that has taught her methods and skills she uses to tackle her complex topic, she is one of 15 young Africans selected in a Charles R. Wall African Policy Fellowship run by the African Wildlife Foundation and the United Nations Environmental Program. She is also a member of the GEF Small Grants Programme National Steering Committee, which focuses on community projects located in the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve in Limpopo as well as Wildlife Economy projects across South Africa. She is part of the team that is developing national guidelines for benefit sharing that leads to conservation and sustainable use (BS4CSU project) and she participates in the honeybush community of practice. Before enrolling for her doctoral research, she worked with indigenous communities in the Western Cape Province in South Africa, where she piloted the National Recordal Systems initiative, a government initiative that documents and seek to preserve indigenous knowledge.
