Spotted hyenas appear to be adapting to climate change in Tanzania’s famous Serengeti National Park, surprising researchers who expected changing rainfall patterns would force the carnivores to spend more time…
Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have seized 2 metric tons of ivory in the city of Lubumbashi, a hub for ivory trafficking. The May 14 seizure is one…
A recent study confirms alarming declines in raptor populations in Kenya. Incidental poisoning is a major problem for vultures in particular, depriving ecosystems of the birds' vital role as scavengers.…
Last month, the Democratic Republic of Congo approved the auctioning off of 16 oil blocks, at least nine of which are in the fragile peatland ecosystem of the Cuvette Centrale.…
On May 12, a judge in Uganda's specialized court for wildlife crimes sentenced Bob Mbaya Kabongo to a seven year jail term for smuggling 122 African grey parrots into the…
Baby West African slender-snouted crocodiles come into the world doubly watched over. Females of the species, Mecistops cataphractus, guard their nests on the riverbanks in the Tano River Basin until…
A South African judge has declared invalid the 2016 extension of a mining right to allow Tendele Coal Mining Pty. to expand one of the country’s largest coal operations. Examining…
ANTANANARIVO — During the current shrimping season, 39 trawlers will catch just over 4,000 metric tons of shrimp in Madagascar's waters. But one company, with a five-year exploitation right, didn’t…
Smelters and manufacturers that use coltan, tin and tungsten in cars, mobile devices and other electronics can't be sure the minerals have been extracted without using children or forced…
Conservationists in South Africa have translocated four young black rhinoceros bulls to the Bonamanzi Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal province, in an effort to preserve the population’s genetics and expand safe…
The publication of an audit of forestry contracts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the first step in a $500 million deal struck between funders and the government last November,…
The critically endangered estuarine pipefish is known from only two estuaries on the eastern coast of South Africa. Syngnathus watermeyeri was declared extinct in 1994, only to be found again…
Conservationists feared that chimpanzees in Comoé National Park might have been wiped out during a decade of civil conflict in Côte d'Ivoire. But camera-trap footage found a healthy population and…
Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is a sanctuary for half of the world’s remaining population of endangered mountain gorillas, alongside forest elephants and many other species. But two road projects…
For the past decade, an association of small farmers has been growing vegetables amid a strip of filao trees that grow on the sand dunes along the coastline in the…
MAKOKOU, Gabon — In August 2020, the Massaha community in northeastern Gabon made a formal request to the government to declassify a logging concession allocated to a Chinese company, Transport…
The export of 22 wild-caught elephants from Namibia to the United Arab Emirates in March has raised concerns over their welfare and stoked criticism of how Namibia manages its wildlife.…
In early February, wildlife rangers in the remote northern forests of West Africa’s Republic of Benin became some of the most recent victims of the Sahel’s long-running Islamist insurgency when…
A team of biologists has discovered a nesting stronghold for Africa’s rarest falcon in the granite domes that tower over Mozambique's Niassa Special Reserve. The team surveyed more than 30…
An international conservation group is pushing forward with ambitious plans for extended elephant corridors in Africa that would allow the animals room to move more freely — not just across…
In January 2019, authorities in Uganda intercepted a shipment of nearly 4 tons of elephant ivory and pangolin scales on its way to the capital, Kampala, from the neighboring Democratic…
For the second time in just over two months, a South African court has acted to stop a seismic survey for oil and gas off the country’s west coast. On…
ABUJA, Nigeria — On Feb. 3, the Trinity Spirit, a floating production, storage and offloading vessel, caught fire off the coast of Nigeria. Seven of 10 crew members were killed.…
In 2021, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s biggest province, Tshopo, lost 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of intact forests to fires. Researchers based in the provincial capital, Kisangani, suspect the record-breaking…
At the end of January, Canadian oil and gas company Reconnaissance Africa (ReconAfrica) discreetly announced it expected approvals shortly for a second seismic survey and the drilling of three to…
MAKENI, Sierra Leone — Residents of Koidu, in eastern Sierra Leone, are pursuing a class-action lawsuit against the operators of a diamond mine they say has dumped toxic mine waste,…
For the past 30 years, soaring demand from East Asia has fueled massive poaching of a South African abalone, Haliotis midae, reducing the mollusk’s population to a fraction of its…
HEADLANDS, Zimbabwe — Since Netty Joyce Mukanganise started growing tobacco 12 years ago, she and her neighbors have ransacked the forest near her home for firewood to cure their crop.…
The earliest reports of nutcracking behavior in chimpanzees by Western scientists came in the 1840s. In the time since, evidence of animals modifying something in their environment and then using…
NIMBA COUNTY, Liberia — In 2020, villagers from the Blei and Sehyi Kodoo districts agreed to allow Solway Mining Incorporated to explore for iron-ore deposits in their territory in the…