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…
MINAWAO, Cameroon — On market day in the Minawao refugee camp, every necessity is spread out beneath the mid-morning sun: vegetables, dried fish, soap, new and used clothes, farm implements.…
MINAWAO, Cameroon — The refugee camp comes to life soon after dawn, some residents shouldering tools and exchanging greetings as they head out to the small farms they've established on…
The screechy, chirruping notes of Lilian’s lovebirds are the dominant music in the air on a sunny June afternoon in an expanse of mopane forest deep in Malawi's Liwonde National…
Iluka Alain was a bit surprised when the two men turned up on a motorcycle in December 2021 in Bofekalasumba, the village where he’s chief in the northwestern Democratic Republic…
Gcina Dlamini blows through a whistle fashioned from a piece of dried fruit in the forest near his home in the town of Lavumisa in Eswatini, the Southern African kingdom…
Eliupendo Laltaika spent much of his childhood in the village of Nainokanoka, in the northern part of Tanzania's Ngorongoro Conservation Area, herding cattle with his older brother. Sometimes they would…
A report accusing Kenya-based conservation group the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) of involvement in extrajudicial killings of pastoralists was rejected on June 9 in an independent review commissioned by the…
KIRKWOOD, South Africa — About 80 kilometers, or 50 miles, inland from the coastal city of Gqeberha, a brilliant patch of green stands out against a landscape recovering from six…
HWANGE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s government recently concluded a conference to attempt to rally international support for the sale of its ivory stockpile. It argues that selling some of the 136…
In August 2021, local communities accused a Chinese gold-mining company of polluting a river in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s northeastern province of Tshopo. Residents living near the town of…
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…