Over the past decade, communities affected by transnational palm oil and rubber company Socfin’s plantations have raised complaints with local authorities and in international media. Socfin recently initiated an investigation…
Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.
Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of brief stories from the extractives industry in Africa.
Climate change will severely reduce the distribution of a caterpillar that’s harvested, sold and eaten by millions of people across Southern Africa, with some regions projected to lose nearly 100%…
A population of endangered elephant shrews has rebounded in a threatened coastal forest reserve in Kenya, suggesting the rabbit-sized mammals with endearingly long snouts could be adapting to both human…
Afromontane forests occur at high altitudes across Africa. They’re thought to be relics of former glacial periods in Africa. Studying genetic data from birds living in these moist temperate forests,…
Oil and gas companies, led by Shell, Eni, Chevron, Total and ExxonMobil, spilled 110,000 barrels of oil into Nigeria’s Bayelsa state over the past 50 years, a new report says.…
"Our cries over frequent oil spills that threaten our livelihoods have fallen on deaf ears."
“The challenge in the Nkok SIZ is timber traceability. The SIZ must be kept free of illegally obtained timber,” says Marc Ona, executive secretary of the NGO Brainforest. The NGO…
Cameroon cocoa growers plant fruit trees to slow forest conversion Cocoa farmers in part of Cameroon’s Centre region have begun planting fruit trees alongside their cocoa trees. Agroforestry promoters hope…
Between 2019 and 2021, swarms of desert locusts̨ swept across the Horn of Africa and East Africa. In response, the worst-affected countries, Kenya and Ethiopia, sprayed millions of hectares of…
MPUMALANGA, South Africa — Living surrounded by 22 coal mines, women in the small town of Carolina illustrate both the urgency and the difficulty of a just transition to clean…
‘New world’ in Angola’s relic forests threatened by fires: scientists NAMBA MOUNTAINS, Angola — Remote pockets of species-rich afromontane forest in Angola’s Namba Mountains will be lost if nothing is…
EBURU, Kenya — The twin peaks of Mount Eburu are draped with 87 square kilometers, about 34 square miles, of montane forest. They’re home to more than 40 species of…
More than 60% of people in Central Africa have no access to electricity. An ambitious proposal aims to change that with a network of pipelines, refineries and gas-fired power plants…
One dead, four injured as Ghana gold miner moves to evict artisanal miners BENSO, Ghana — Police killed one person and injured four others while attempting to clear trespassing miners…
Carbon offset certifier Verra has suspended issuance of credits from an award-winning project in Kenya, Mongabay has learned, after serious questions were raised about its validation and methodology. Indigenous rights…
A community conservancy in Namibia says it plans to sue the country’s environment minister if he fails to act against a copper mine operating in an area exclusively reserved for…
Environmental and social impact assessments (ESIA) have become an important tool for decision-makers around the world to explore and understand the impacts of proposed development projects on the wider ecosystem.…
DRC community accuses Canadian miner of encroaching into their forests WALIKALE, Democratic Republic of Congo — For the past 10 years, a Canadian-registered company, Alphamin Bisie, has been mining tin…
Between May 2021 and November 2022, more than 200,000 deforestation alerts covering a total of 2,700 hectares (6,670 acres) were recorded around Ouesso, the administrative seat of Sangha province, in…
LAGOS — Across Atorin-Ijesha in southwestern Nigeria, the clatter of stones fills the air as excavators aggressively dig into the soil. Gold miners work from dawn till dusk excavating the…
Michele Menegon and a team of local and international scientists have just described six new species of thumb-sized chameleon in Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains. The forest-capped mountains form an inland…
When John Midgley dug a golden brown tarantula out of its burrow in the remote woodlands of southeastern Angola, he felt he had found “one of the most astonishing animals…
Campaigners sue Ghana’s government to block mining of Atewa Forest biodiversity hotspot Twenty NGOs and individuals are taking legal action to prevent the Ghanaian government from mining bauxite in the…
South Africa community stands up to ‘bully’ platinum miner GA-NGWEPE, South Africa — The South African government has given a platinum miner until March 1 to discuss compensation to communities…
A flagship dam and large-scale sugarcane plantations in southwestern Ethiopia are causing starvation and disease among several Indigenous groups driven off their land by the projects, according to a report…
Niger Delta community pursues new claims over Shell oil spills in U.K. court More than 11,000 people from Nigeria's southeastern oil-producing region have filed claims against Shell at a London…
“I come here to find gold. First we cut down the trees, then we burn them. Then we start digging the soil to open the pit,” says a young man…
Newly described bat from Mozambique mountain under threat, researchers say A forest that harbors Mozambique’s most recently identified species of mammal could disappear within the next two years as small-scale…