I have been attending the final conference of the SUN (Sustainable Use of Natural Vegetation in West Africa) Project in Benin. This EU-funded project has been a collaboration between partners from four West African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger and Senegal) and two European countries (Denmark and Germany) and spans several disciplines. It has been great to see how the partners from different countries and different disciplines have been collaborating across country and disciplinary borders, and how this is has strengthened the science that has been produced. It can confidently be said that everyone who has taken an active involvement in the project has gained a great deal of from it.

Inevitably, this has made me think about South African science in a continental context. I know that there are some efforts from within South Africa to work within a greater African framework (and I don't just mean "doing research in another country", but actively collaborating), but it is not common. (In fact, I have heard several non-African scientists working in Africa make tongue-in-cheek remarks about how the understanding of "how the environment works" of South African scientists seems to stop at the country's borders.) Sadly, I have also heard African scientists commenting about how they are treated with some inferiority by some (and I by no means want to imply all) of their South African peers. Whether this is a result of South Africa's history, because of the ignorance of South Africans about the rest of Africa (which, admittedly, is still a dark continent to many of us) or because of the attitude of a country that considers itself to be the most developed amongst its African counterparts, this is a great shame. I increasingly realise how South African science could be strengthened by the expertise of its neighbours, and how it could also contribute to the advancement of science in other African nations. Perhaps it's the "we have to prove that we can compete on an international level" attitude of South Africans, but possibly also the source of much funding in the country (often from within the country) which have prevented much collaboration of biologists across its borders. It would be great if South Africans research would look not only at its far-northern, but also its closer northern counterparts in seeking out collaborative ventures.