Trustees
Prof Johann Kirsten (Chair)
Prof Johann Kirsten is Professor and Director of the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) at the University of Stellenbosch. In the past, he was Professor in Agricultural Economics and head of the Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development at the University of Pretoria – a position he occupied for 20 years, until 2016.
Johann served as a council member of the National Agricultural Marketing Council in South Africa from 2001 to 2011, and was appointed by the Minister of Agriculture as Chair of the Food Price Committee during 2003/4. He served as the Vice-President of the International Association of Agricultural Economists for the period 2006 – 2009. His main research interests are agricultural policy, land reform and the economics of origin-based foods. In this respect, he guided the legislative process to get legal protection for Karoo Lamb, and to establish the Geographical Indication for this well-known iconic South African food.
Johann can be contacted at Send Email.
Prof Doreen Atkinson
Prof Doreen Atkinson studied Political Science and Economics at Rhodes University, University of California (Berkeley) and University of KwaZulu-Natal. Since 1985, she has conducted research on wide variety of socio-economic and political issues, including rural and regional development, small towns, intergovernmental relations, infrastructure, tourism and heritage. She is the produced five books: A Small Miracle: South Africa's Negotiated Settlement (with Steven Friedman, 1994); From a Tier to a Sphere: Local Government in the New South African Constitutional Order (with Maxine Reitzes, 1998); A Pathway to Sustainability - Local Agenda 21 in South Africa (with Penny Urquhart, 2001); Going for Broke: The Fate of Farm Workers in Arid South Africa (2007); and A Most Awful Excitement: The Anglo-Boer War Diary of Gerrit Sem of Philippolis (2022).
Doreen is the project manager of the Forgotten Highway Heritage Route (www.karooforgottenhighway.com). She also manages the Karoo Battlefields website (www.karoobattlefields.net). Her work for the KDF has focused on hosting Karoo conferences, and manages the Forgotten Highway Route. She also participated in the Strategic Environmental Assessments of the proposed shale gas industry in the Karoo, the Square Kilometre Array Telescope near Carnarvon, and the proposed Green Hydrogen project at Boegoebaai, Northern Cape. Her current focus is heritage digitization, focusing primarily on Griqualand West. Since 1994, she has lived and worked in Philippolis, southern Free State.
Contact Doreen at Send Email.
Prof Lucius Botes
Lucius Botes has a background in Theology, Sociology and Development Studies. He was the Founding Director of the Centre for Development Support at the University of the Free State, and served as the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the same institution. Hhe is now a Director in Research Development at the North-West University. Lucius is a founder member of the Karoo Development Foundation. His research interests are development studies, participatory development, community development, local economic development, sustainable livelihoods, municipal cost recovery, community protests and affordable housing. He has acted as development and research consultant to international and national organisations, government departments and companies, and is director/trustee of various non-governmental organisations. He is the author, with Peter Westoby, of the book Does Community Development Work? Stories and Practice for Reconstructed Community Development in South Africa (2020).
He can be contacted at Send Email
Prof Sethulego Matebese
Prof Sethulego (Zachy) Matebesi is an Academic Head of the Department of Sociology and Acting Vice Dean: Research & Postgraduate Studies, Faculty of the Humanities, at the University of the Free State (UFS). He is a C2-rated researcher at the National Research Foundation (NRF), and currently serves as the founding Chairperson of the Southern African Sociological Network. His research interests lie in participatory and local governance, community development, social movements, and mining company-community relations. He also serves as a regular commentator on current affairs for leading South African print and broadcast media. Sethulego has been a KDF Trustee since 2017. His main Karoo research interests are local government and mining towns. He has authored several books, including Civil Strife Against Local Governance: Dynamics of Community Protests in Contemporary South Africa (2017); Social Licensing and Mining in South Africa (2020); and Local Responses to Mine Closure in South Africa (with Lochner Marais and Verna Nel, 2023/2024).
Contact Sethulego at Send Email
Bruce Rubidge
Bruce Rubidge is Director of the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence for Palaeosciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has broad research interests but most of his work focusses on the remarkable fossil record of the Karoo and their significance in understanding the origin of mammals. He has published more than 170 research publications in internationally accredited journals and 36 MSc and PhD students achieved their degrees under his supervision. Being passionate to expose the palaeoheritage of South Africa to the public, Rubidge was instrumental in setting up a palaeoscience museum at Wits which forms the core of an active palaeoscience outreach programme. He was also involved with the development of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site, the Golden Gate Dinosaur exhibition Centre, and setting up the Kitching Fossil Exploration Centre in Nieu Bethesda as a sustainable palaeotourism business which employs local people from the town.
Contact Bruce at Send Email.
Sindisile Madyo
Sindisile Madyo, is a Karoo Development Foundation Trustee with vast experience in local economic development, education, local governance and spatial development imperatives linked to the renewable energy hub in the Pixley ka Seme District Municipality. In this capacity, Sindisile conceptualised the Pixley ka Seme District Renewable Energy Hub. Sindisile is a full-time employee of Scatec Solar Sustainability Unit. Until 2017, Sindisile served as Acting Municipal Manager of Ubuntu Local Municipality and the LED Manager of the Pixley ka Seme District Municipality. Sindisile is also a founding member of the radio station, Ulwazi FM, in De Aar.
Contact Sindisile at Send Email.
Helene Smuts
As arts educator, writer, publisher and film producer Helène Smuts supports learning and facilitates knowledge exchange between rural and urban life, drawing on the diversity of the southern African cultural heritage. She is an established writer and developer of cultural museum narratives, educational catalogues and education programs.
In 2004 Helène Smuts founded the independent non-profit company and NPO Africa meets Africa Projects (www.africameetsafrica.co.za). AmA integrates a range of school subjects, including Creative Arts, Social Sciences (History and Geography), Mathematics and Natural Science. SKA related Astronomy (Natural Science at school level) for example, is taught by integrating scientific concepts with San and KhoeKhoe cosmologies as expressed in an ancient oral tradition and archaeological research, all located in the same Karoo landscape, integrated with contemporary visual arts. The AMA books include: “Africa meets Africa: Making a living through the Mathematics of Zulu Design” and “Africa meets Africa: Ndebele Women designing Identity”. Two AMA books are related directly to the Karoo: “Africa meets Africa: Pathways through the Interior”; and “Africa meets Africa: My Room at the Center of the Universe.”
Ingrid Schöfmann
Ingrid Schöfmann lives in Loxton, Northern Cape and has voluntarily in the past three years worked actively to inform the agricultural sector against Uranium mining and Fracking in the Karoo. Ingrid currently volunteers as the chairperson of the NPO Ubuntu Forum for Socio-Economic Development (UFSED). She pursues her passions of universe building and land art by coordinating activities that promote development. She has facilitated the registration of community co-operatives with the assistance of the Dept of Public Works, Dept of Agriculture & Fisheries, Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) The members of the co-operatives receive skills development training and also become tourism experiences when tourist visit Loxton.
Currently, Ingrid is developing a case study to facilitate future implementation in neighbouring towns. Ingrid is also a member of the voluntary Site_Specific Land Art Collective (https://sitespecific.org.za/). This is a group of volunteers who are passionate about art in nature and who aim to promote a conversation about our cultural practices and its impacts on nature, involving artists and local residents. See https://youtu.be/97BpbVeucH8 https://youtu.be/4hKOcwMwOrE
Contact Ingrid at Send Email
David Morris
Dr David Morris heads the Archaeology Department at the McGregor Museum, Kimberley. He is also an Extraordinary Professor in the School of Humanities at Sol Plaatje University, involved in the archaeology/heritage programmes. He is an Honorary Member of the Association of Southern African Professional Archaeologists. His principal interest is rock art in the Northern Cape. He has been involved in developing public archaeology projects at sites such as Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre and Wonderwerk Cave, having co-curated the archaeology and frontier history displays at the McGregor Museum.
David has published research articles in national and international journals, and the co-authored book Karoo rock engravings (with John Parkington and Neil Rusch, 2008) and co-editorship of Working with rock art (with Ben Smith and Knut Helskog, 2012). He was also a co-editor and contributor to the book Engraved landscape: Biesje Poort: Many stories (Lange et al 2013), and the Africa Meets Africa book/DVD educational sets, Pathways through the interior (2011) and My Room at the Centre of the Universe (2014). He is currently serving a second term as a Council member of the National Museum in Bloemfontein.
See also: https://www.spu.ac.za/index.php/humanities-team/
Contact David at Send Email
Jonathan Deal
Jonathan Deal is a South African environmentalist. He was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2013, in particular for his efforts on protecting the Karoo region, leading a team of scientists to bring forward environmental impacts of planned exploitation of possible shale gas in the region. Jonathan published the book Timeless Karoo in 2007.
Contact Jonathan at send email
