You know you are getting older when colleagues you consider friends and mentors start to pass away.

I was very sad this morning to hear from friends in South Africa that Dave MacDevette died on Friday while rock climbing near his home in Cape Town. Dave was founder and president of Empowerment for African Sustainable Development (EASD).

I first met Dave through my boss at IISD. They had worked together in Fiji 15 years or so ago. When I met him, he was doing a lot on African environmental information systems and state of the environment reporting. He and his wife Monika had a house in Nairobi and were both doing contracts with UNEP. I stayed with them there for a few days on my way back from a GKP meeting in Ethiopia and lent Dave a hand at a meeting at UNEP on developing a capacity building strategy. We had a great time talking about life, the universe and everything while having a drink on his deck and watching the monkeys in the trees.

One of the things I always admired about Dave was his commitment to young people - both his own sons and other young South Africans. When he moved back to Cape Town more full time a few years ago, he was very excited about being able to surf and climb with his sons. And he was excited about raising funds through EASD to support the ideas and research of all of the motivated young people he kept meeting in S Africa. It was through Dave that IISD was able to find first Chris Higgo and later Steve Vosloo to work with us on the Information Society and Sustainable Development project.

Dave will be very missed.