Previous studies have shown that Africa’s tropical forests store more carbon per hectare than Amazonian forests. But how they do so is still a puzzle. It turns out that elephants…
Last week, a timber company won a controversial lawsuit against Liberia’s Forestry Development Authority when a court ordered the agency to allow a shipment of illegal logs to be exported…
Tanzania is Africa's second-biggest producer of honey, and to get it to the next level, the country’s government and aid agencies want beekeepers to adopt hanging-frame beehive designs to increase…
In a small room at a safe house owned by a human rights group in rural Liberia, away from prying eyes and passing ears, Decontee explains why she quit her…
Nigeria's new oil frontier puts communities at risk, campaigners warn Nigeria’s state-owned oil company started drilling for oil and gas at a field in the Kolmani River in the country’s northeast in November.…
Not far up the hill, after a right turn off the main road that leads from the Zulu town of Mtubatuba in the province of KwaZulu-Natal into one of South…
Residents of a village in northeastern South Africa, displaced to make way for one of the country’s largest open-pit coal mines in 2007, are suffering from long-term collective trauma, with…
When luxury safari hotel Shompole Lodge opened in Kenya in 2000, it was an overnight sensation. For $630 a night, guests could gaze at elephants and zebras while soaking in…
Two African penguin chicks have emerged from their nest beneath a boulder at a site in South Africa where conservationists have used lifelike decoy penguins and broadcast penguin calls to…
Congo Basin impact of new FSC rule will depend on governance YAOUNDÉ — Until recently, forestry companies that had cleared natural forests for plantations since the Forest Stewardship Council was…
It’s a stunning landscape with a prophetic name: Lisima lya mwono, or “the source of life” as it’s known in the language of the local Luchaze people. But that’s not…
South Africa approves platinum mine despite community concerns GA-NGWEPE, South Africa — South Africa’s minister of mineral resources and energy has approved a platinum mine in the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve,…
Activists have accused an association of banks claiming to adhere to principles safeguarding people and the environment of “greenwashing.” Two signatories of the Equator Principles are currently advising East African…
Logging near Cameroon national park raises red flags over permits YAOUNDE — Agroindustrial company Cameroun Vert S.A., or Camvert, is again clearing forest near Campo Ma'an National Park, raising questions…
Groups demand end to Chinese gold mine operating inside DRC reserve ITURI PROVINCE, Democratic Republic of Congo — Civil society groups have condemned what they say is illegal gold mining…
DAKAR — The construction of a highway linking the Senegalese capital, Dakar, to Saint Louis, the principal city in the north of the country, will encroach heavily on forest reserves,…
The Gura Ferda forest in southwest Ethiopia is a beautiful example of a forest and local people living in harmony, says biodiversity and protected area specialist Julian Bayliss. Bayliss, who…
In the first nine months of this year, poachers have killed 190 rhinos in state-run protected areas in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. That’s one rhino killed every 35 hours. Most…
Australian firm Invictus plans forest protection projects covering more than 300,000 hectares, or 741,000 acres, of indigenous forest in western Zimbabwe, which the company says will more than offset emissions…
DAKAR — A fishers’ collective called Taxawu Cayar has brought a case before the Senegalese courts to demand the closure of a fishmeal factory in the Grande Côte area, around…
Liberian forest communities were supposed to get a cut of logging fees. They say they got a sliver MONROVIA, Liberia — On Sept. 29, several Liberian communities affected by logging…
From oil to diamonds, offshore prospecting looms over South African fishing town DORINGBAAI, South Africa — On Sept. 23 and 24, 150 women in the small fishing town of Doringbaai,…
The July 2021 rupture of a tailings dam at a diamond mine in Angola killed off much of the aquatic life in the Lova, Tshikapa and Kasai rivers. Twelve people…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Three chimpanzees have been kidnapped and are being held for ransom after intruders broke into a primate sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo.…
Fresh controversy has emerged over the leading certification scheme for sustainable palm oil after a verification mission exposed ongoing issues around certified oil palm plantations in Cameroon. Earlier this year,…
Camera traps are helping researchers get a closer look at pockets of Gabon’s forests that were previously impractical to study. The Central African country has, at 80% by some estimates,…
Since March, bulldozers have opened around 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, of dirt road running north from the village of Kopongo in Cameroon across a forestry concession and into the…
Morocco fire forces evacuation of 15 villages and sparks fears that hundreds of endangered Barbary macaques may have been killed.
MAPUTO — Authorities in Mozambique have arrested two men for allegedly attempting to sell rhino horn in the country’s capital, Maputo. Hilario Lole, a spokesperson for the National Criminal Investigation…
The world’s largest bank of the partially decomposed plant matter known as peat in the tropics is even more extensive than initially thought, according to a new study. The peatlands…
