Susanne Vetter is Associate Professor in the Department of Botany at Rhodes University, South Africa. She is a plant ecologist with interests in vegetation change, rangelands, and the relationships between people and nature. Her work covers vegetation change, including woody encroachment and thicket expansion in savannas, the role of plant functional traits in vegetation change, and the feedbacks of these processes on ecosystem services and society. Other research interests include the effects of drought, climatic variability and land degradation on livestock dynamics in pastoralist systems, and the multiple meanings of nature to rural and urban residents in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Susanne is currently the president of the Grassland Society of Southern Africa and a member of the Working Group on Afforestation in Rangelands of the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP).