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The two -- Tendani Mariba and Sobahle Somhlaba -- are both employees of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism's Marine and Coastal Management branch.
They are to participate in at least one of the four continuous research cruises being carried out in 2008 on the Norwegian research vessel, Dr Fridtjof Nansen.
The Dr Fridtjof Nansen is one of the most sophisticated scientific research vessels in the world.
On Thursday 14 August, it will leave Cape Town on the first of a number of research voyages that will be organised by the Agulhas and Somali Current Large Marine Ecosystems (ASCLME) project and funded by the Global Environment Facility, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
The 118-day voyage includes a detailed survey of the marine and coastal environment of Madagascar, Mauritius, the Mozambique Channel and a remote ocean region known as the Mascarene Plateau.
The voyage will cover some of the least studied ocean regions in the world.
Mariba and Somhlaba are part of a team of African and European oceanographers who will deploy a range of oceanographic equipment from the Dr Fr idtjof Nansen in a bid to gather as much information about this little known are a as possible.
The information will lay the groundwork for the countries of the region to develop a strategy for collectively managing the resources on which their people and economies depend.
"This is fundamental, pioneering research in an area of the world that is still uncharted territory in oceanographic terms," says Dr. David Vousden, Director of the ASCLME project.
"It is vital for the countries of the region to understand more about these waters. You can't manage a marine ecosystem unless you have a basic idea of what the currents are doing and the effects they have on marine life."
Over the next five years, the ASCLME project will coordinate the efforts of Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa and Tanzania, helping them to compile a comprehensive scientific analysis of the transboundary environmental problems that affect the region.
This analysis, termed a Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA), will be used as a starting point for the countries to set out a Strategic Action Programme (SAP ) or roadmap for tackling these problems.
"This research voyage and those that will follow in 2009 and 2010 are integral to achieving the aims of the ASCLME project," says Dr. Vousden.
Mariba and Somhlaba, who are both graduates of South African Universities, have received intensive training, funded by the ASCLME project and facilitated by the University of Cape Town, to familiarise them with the equipm e nt on the Dr Fridtjof Nansen and enable them to participate fully in the forthco m ing research voyage.
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