We warmly invite you to the Afro-European Wood and Bark Anatomy Conference (AFEWBA) in South Africa — a country of exceptional plant diversity, offering untapped opportunities for botanists. The conference will be hosted by the University of Johannesburg, a dynamic and rapidly growing institution that not only houses one of the country’s leading teams of structural botanists but is also a recognised leader in sustainable development. AFEWBA will explore wood and bark as well as other related topics, broadening the focus to include aspects beyond the traditional scope of these fascinating plant tissues. 

Over forty years ago, the International Association of Wood Anatomists (IAWA) organised the first Afro-European Regional Wood Anatomy Meeting in Pretoria, South Africa. Fast forward through eleven annual rings, and in October 1996, the next Afro-European Wood Anatomy Symposium took place, this time in Kew, organised by the Linnean Society of London, the International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO), and IAWA. This tradition continued with a meeting in Montpellier in 2004, co-organised by IAWA and the International Academy of Wood Science (IAWS), and later with the Tropical Forest Ecology/IAWA meeting in Tervuren in 2015. Since then, no further Afro-European Wood Anatomy meetings have taken place. In 2026, AFEWBA, organised by the Afro-European Regional group of IAWA, will go back to the tradition and continue to provide this important academic platform for the wood anatomy community. 

Please encourage your colleagues to register (in fact, only to express their interest) by December 1st 2025. For detailed information, please visit https://conferences.uj.ac.za/AFEWBA2026/.