Overview
	Pan African research will lead to better understanding and valuation of Interactive Earth Systems and Earth Resources. AEON is a joint research initiative of 18 South African scientists that have widely consulted with the science, academic and business community. The aim of the initiative is to develop and communicate a better understanding of Earth Systems and their interaction at different scales and rates, and from this, to construct robust Earth Stewardship models for Africa. The task is to track Earth history to facilitate better planning for the future and ensure that we Arrive Alive 50 years from now. Scientists believe that climate change, biodiversity, natural resources and hazards of Africa will be better understood once they have differentiated and analysed the dynamics of the Earth’s operating systems. The University of Cape Town in South Africa has been chosen as the home base for AEON because the natural Earth Systems in and around the Cape and the rest of South Africa, combined with its new socio-political structure, is simply the best experimental “crucible” in the world. The Cape has a user friendly infrastructure and is easy to access from Africa and abroad. In 2005, researchers from at least 8 different South African universities and research institutions will start to collaborate in this unique initiative. AEON was conceptualised at a workshop in Cape Town in 2001, following informal discussions going back as far as 1996. The aim of the initiative originally focused on how to develop a better understanding of Earth Systems Science, and at the same time create a new environment that would make it attractive for young African earth scientists with extensive overseas training, particular in the USA and UK, to return to Africa and make a substantial and lasting contribution to the needs of the continent. The idea was widely canvassed, initially among the executive leadership of the three major Tertiary institutions of the Western Cape, and later with the then Minister of Education, the president of the National Research Foundation of South Africa, the president of the Academy of Science of South Africa, and the Director General of the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The founder members of AEON have built up a large African network in almost all African countries and established a framework of solid links with leading technical and academic institutions worldwide. Their work has a reputation of combining quality research and technical services that are highly sought after by industry and government agencies. AEON will provide socio-political gains in the unique opportunity it presents to encourage a new generation of African post-graduates and postdoctoral researchers with multicultural backgrounds to explore ways of integrating frontier Earth System Science with the economic and social needs of their developing continent; and learn to integrate African datasets to develop new global models. AEON has four main components united into a common goal of capacity building and sustainable Africa: · EarthOBSERVATORY, a common space in which to study, teach, and outreach Earth Systems Science and resource economics, to gain better insight into global climate change, to investigate the feedback mechanisms between oceans, atmosphere, and land in Africa; to find and explore natural resources sustainably, and to derive new paradigms linking science and society. · · EarthLAB, a laboratory in which to measure Earth’s clockwork and read the archives of Africa’s 4.0 billion years of Earth and Life evolution with which to predict into the future; and in which to monitor the changing chemical finger-prints of Earth System cycles. · · EarthBRAIN, a centre in which to mine, model and manage the vast explosion of spacial data from the Earth Systems and its resources · EarthWISE, a program with which to teach and reach out to the new generation of African Earth Stewards, the African public at large, and the global community.
AEON will define, develop, research, teach and implement a new discipline – Earth Stewardship Science – and develop a unique Science & Technology blend to unleash new opportunities and challenges for young Africans. AEON is a catalyst for scientific and technological advances with spin-offs that are truly integrated with the socio-economic needs of Africa.