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 have been marginalised and excluded from the use of honeybush in repressive regime, continuing through the current democratic regime. The research has policy significance for understanding contemporary biodiversity use in the context of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the ways in which history affects and shapes the distribution of costs and benefits arising from biodiversity commercialisation. Sthembile is a STEPS-Centre summer school alumnus, and she participates in various platforms that deal with honeybush sector development, biodiversity economy and those that are related to the Bio-Economy Research Chair. 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 indigenous knowledge.
