FABI hosted a delegation of officials from the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), academics and forestry students on 19 March. The group were part of DAFF, the African Union, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Wide Fund for Nature's (WWF) International Day of Forests celebrations held at the University of Pretoria’s Future Africa campus. The day is marked every year on 21 March after the UN General Assembly proclaimed it in 2012 and the theme this year is “Forests and education”. 

The delegate were at FABI for a tour of the Institute’s facilities and special seminar by Dr Ida Risenga of Wits University’s School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences and her MSc student, Floyd Ralepele. The pair discussed their research on Moringa oleifera, a tree species native to India. Dr Risenga highlighted the properties of the drought resistant tree, lauded for its medicinal and nutritional uses, as well as its use in water purification. Floyd discussed his study on the effects of seasonal variation on the tree’s production of secondary metabolites.