By Dennis Peprah
Sunyani, (Bono), April 9, GNA – A team of tree climbing experts from Germany and Australia has donated scientific equipment worth $6,000 dollars to the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR).
Mr Sam Hardingham, Arborist-Tree climbing instructor and the Director, Everydayarbor, Australia, said the equipment including drone cameras were meant to enhance the university research into tree canopy.
Other members of the team include Vicki Tough, tree climbing instructor at the Sylvana Alta Tree climbing training school for scientists, Germany and Steven Pearce, the Director, Thretreeprojects.com, Australia.
They were at the university to train its researchers and students of the Department of Biological Sciences on tree climbing skills in line with their collaboration with the university.
Mr Hardingham welcomed the collaborative research work between the team and the university birth in 2024, underlining the need for the university’s researchers and students to acquire the requisite skills in tree climbing.
That would help close the long existing canopy research gap in the country and Africa by extension. Professor Elvis Asare-Bediako, the Vice Chancellor of the UENR said the university was highly grateful to the team for the equipment and cherished the collaboration, saying that would make the institution a hub in canopy research in Africa.
“From our interactions, very soon UENR will soon become the hub of canopy research in Africa,” he stated. Dr Bismarck Ofosu-Bamfo, an Ecologist at the UENR’s Department of Biological Sciences stressed the need for researchers to leverage on the training to be more enlightened on the ecology and tree climbing skills.
He said students and researchers from Gabon, Rwanda and Guinea would also participate in the training to be held at the university campus between April 9 and April 18, 2025.
GNA
DEN/LAA