Categories for africa
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…
It was a banner moment at COP26, one of the climate summit’s headline achievements. On stage, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson sat with President Félix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic…
Scientists have puzzled over the distinctive form of giraffes at least since Charles Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (figuratively) butted heads over how the towering ungulates got their long necks. The…
BLANTYRE, Malawi — A harvest of just four sacks of maize, each weighing 50 kilograms, or 110 pounds, means only four and a half months of food security for Ellena…
Before the inhabitants of Itsamia in Comoros decided to intervene, turtles arriving to nest on its beaches drew villagers from neighboring hamlets. Anywhere from 10 to 30 green sea turtles…
Tanzania’s Rufiji Delta is arguably the mangrove capital of East Africa, home to around 55,000 hectares (135,900 acres) of mangrove forest. In the face of the climate crisis, mangroves like…
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — As dawn breaks, the fishing wharf at Tamba Kula in Freetown buzzes with the movement of early-morning commerce. Fishers just back from days spent far out…
MARERENI, Kenya — One day in April, at a few minutes past six in the morning, the sun’s golden rays lit up the sea on Kenya’s coast. A few early-rising…
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…
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…
Conservation biologist Estrela Matilde has won the 2022 Whitley Award for her work to save sea turtles on the island of Príncipe in Africa’s Gulf of Guinea. The awards, often…
The Ambatovy nickel mine located in a biodiversity-rich Madagascar rainforest made up for the forest lost due to its operation, a recent study in Nature Sustainability concluded. The mine operators…
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…
It might be surprising to learn that, in a lake as large as Victoria, a single fish could shape so much of East Africa’s history, culture and, now, an uncertain…
In 2019, researchers sailed to a sprawling seamount off the coast of South Africa, and lowered hydrophones to the seafloor. They picked up all kinds of noises: waves, the crackling of…
Gomon. In Seychellois Creole, this has generally been the word to refer to anything “green and slimy,” says biologist and marine turtle expert Jeanne Mortimer. “You have gomon in the…
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…
This March, the NGO Friends of Bonobos released 14 bonobos into the wild — only the second time ever a bonobo group has been reintroduced to their natural habitat. Their…
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…
Established in 1936 and situated just 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the sprawling megacity of Lagos, Akure-Ofosu Forest Reserve has long been a sanctuary for Nigeria’s diverse and dwindling wildlife.…