South African soil ecologist who holds an extraordinary professorship in soil ecology in the Department of Soil Science at Stellenbosch University and runs an independent consulting practice. Anthony J. Mills studies soil-plant relationships and ecosystem function, with applied work on carbon sequestration and the restoration of degraded land.
Contribution
Mills studied zoology and environmental geochemistry at the University of Cape Town, took an MPhil in environment and development at the University of Cambridge, and completed his PhD in soil science at Stellenbosch. His consulting covers climate change adaptation and mitigation, ecosystem conservation and restoration, carbon sequestration, and capacity building in developing countries.
With Richard Cowling he measured carbon sequestration at subtropical thicket restoration sites in the Eastern Cape, work that informs spekboom restoration programmes. The research brief on Bioprecipitation cites his 2013 study with Cowling and others on transformed renosterveld, and the wiki’s source page draws from it the soil carbon figures for intact, farmed and fallowed renosterveld. The wiki reads that evidence as a co-financing pathway: carbon revenue stacked on water-yield payments from the same restored hectare.
Selected works
- Mills, A.J. & Cowling, R.M. (2006). “Rate of carbon sequestration at two thicket restoration sites in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.” Restoration Ecology, 14(1), 38-49.
- Mills, A.J., Cowling, R.M. et al. (2013). “Restoring the fauna and flora of transformed renosterveld.” As cited in the wiki’s source record.
Related pages
Sources
Provenance
Written 23 October 2026 from the people named on Bioprecipitation, using public institutional profiles and published work. Public roles and publications only. The bibliographic details of the 2013 renosterveld paper could not be confirmed against the journal and are carried as the wiki’s source record gives them.