Weather Stations & Research Centres
There are just a handful of hydro-meteorological stations across the vast region of Southern African mountains – nine of them are operated by us. Our mission is to build a network of 16 rugged, solar powered weather stations across Angola, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Alongside weather stations, we are building a network of mountain research centres to enable scientists from the region and around the world to live and work on the mountainside, researching everything from grasses and butterflies, to the migration of the iconic blue swallow.
Data
So far, we’ve installed two stations in Malawi, two in Zimbabwe’s Manica Highlands and five in South Africa’s Maloti Drakensberg. All our equipment was portered to the summit by hand and installed by technicians from the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban. The data these stations generate on wind speed, temperature, rainfall and air pressure is updated every 2 minutes and downloaded onto our portal. It’s used by the Met Offices in Harare and Lilongwe, by farmers and academics. Once the stations are up and running the data they generate is freely available to anyone who may need it.
No one else is doing this.
Conference
In March 2022 we co-hosted the first ever Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2022) which took place in the Maloti-Drakensberg mountains of South Africa. With UNESCO patronage we joined together with our partners at The Global Mountain Safeguard Research Programme (GLOMOS: United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security and Eurac Research) and the Afromontane Research Unit (University of the Free State) to arrange this momentous 5 day event. The next conference SAMC2025 is being planned right now.
Research Trip
We are working with universities to co-create a community of practice for southern African mountains. We sponsor students from the region to conduct field research using data from our weather stations to conduct their research.
Partnerships
Collaborating with universities, NGO’s, national parks, local businesses and government we are building a community of practice to research conserve and restore these mountains.
Help us on our mission
Mountains Matter. They are home to 15% of the world’s population, host about half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, provide freshwater for everyday life to half of the global population and help to sustain agriculture and supply clean energy and medicines. Help us to protect them.