ABioSA helped to boost the international career of Dr Rhoda Malgas, and supported her work with local communities, youth and traditional knowledge holders.

Rhoda was a PhD candidate and lecturer at Stellenbosch University when ABioSA invited post-graduate students to apply to present their biotrade-related research to the first African Biotrade Festival in September 2023. Six students were selected, with three offered the opportunity to present at an international conference of their choice. Presentation skills training was provided by ABioSA’s communication consultants, who also helped the students to develop their research into a knowledge product.

Agricultural Research Council expert Dr Cecilia Bester encouraged Rhoda to apply to present her PhD research on sustainable Honeybush economies to ABF audience of industry, government, business support organisations, local and international buyers, and biotrade communities.

'ABF was a great opportunity to share Honeybush knowledge with people outside of academia,' Rhoda says. She was selected as one of the three successful post-graduates students and ABioSA supported her travel to Canada to present at the launch of the international Society for Social-Ecological Systems (SocSES).

'ABioSA gave me this incredible opportunity to meet global thought leaders at the interface between people and the natural environment, in an emerging discipline that supports research and action towards a just and sustainable future,' Rhoda says.

Her Honeybush research was now on the international stage. She chaired a session and gave a global audience insights into SA knowledge gathered with the help of local wild harvesters.

She also began a mentoring relationship with Prof  Fikret Berkes, a Turkish-Canadian ecologist and international pioneer of research into indigenous knowledge systems.

'Without ABioSA I would not have been able to afford to go to Canada, and I would not have discovered this global system of support and mutual interest in an important emerging field of study.'

Motivation from Prof Berkes led to the first paper from Rhoda's PhD being published in the SA Journal of Botany in July 2025. It highlights Honeybush knowledge holders in Genadendal, a rural Western Cape village where Rhoda's grandmother was born and to which she traces her Khoi heritage. It is amongst the oldest known sites of wild Honeybush harvesting and predates the establishment of the industry.

When Rhoda started her studies in 1994 the disciplines of political ecology and social geography were in their infancy. She was one of the first students of colour at UCT, and one of the first in her family to go to university.

'The academic world had been entirely out of my social construct,' says Rhoda as she reflects on the circumstances facing women of colour as first generation students. 'As adults, many of us also have responsibilities as income generators caring for children and our own aging parents. Our duties don't fade away because we are at university...we just have to find a way to do both'

Rhoda feels ties of culture and kinship to the fynbos landscapes where Honeybush grows, and approaches her work with a sense of heritage and pride, and a love for both science and traditional wisdom.

She is now a senior lecturer at the School of Natural Resource Science & Management at Nelson Mandela University. Her teaching encourages students to learn about conservation with sensitivity to the diverse cultural groups who are the custodians of internationally-valued plant species.

She is also the founder of the non-profit Small Things Fund that supports first generation students at South African universities.