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	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
		<atom:link href="https://news.mongabay.com/feed/?location=angola&#038;type=post" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/angola/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:13:31 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>Angola environmental news</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/angola/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Lack of data hinders fight against environmental crimes in Angola, says environmentalist</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/lack-of-data-hinders-fight-against-environmental-crimes-in-angola-says-environmentalist/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/lack-of-data-hinders-fight-against-environmental-crimes-in-angola-says-environmentalist/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Sep 2026 12:02:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[David Tjyakala]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/09/11072035/image2_DesmatamentoAngola1.CreditoAcervoEcoAngola-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=329430</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Angola]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agroforestry, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Deforestation Alert System, forest degradation, Forest Loss, Forestry, NGOs, Parks, Science, Sustainable Forest Management, and timber trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Angola faces severe environmental challenges, and the govern has signed international commitments, such as the Montreal Protocol and the Kigali Amendment, to phase out hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) by 2030 and cut hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by 80% by 2045. However, climate crises such as prolonged droughts affecting the country’s southern region, soil degradation, and floods caused by heavy [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Angola faces severe environmental challenges, and the govern has signed international commitments, such as the Montreal Protocol and the Kigali Amendment, to phase out hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) by 2030 and cut hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by 80% by 2045. However, climate crises such as prolonged droughts affecting the country’s southern region, soil degradation, and floods caused by heavy rains continue to have significant social and economic impacts. It is estimated that more than 2.2 million people are affected by these phenomena. It is against this backdrop that the voice of a new generation of Angolan environmentalists is gaining prominence. Among them is 29-year-old Érica Tavares. She studied Environmental Biology at the University of Nottingham in the UK and now works with environmental conservation and youth mobilization in Angola. She is a co-founder of the NGO EcoAngola and has been at the forefront of forest advocacy, environmental education and youth participation in sustainability debates. In an interview with Mongabay Brazil, Tavares discusses her journey as an environmentalist and the issues that concern her most. Érica Tavares, co-founder of the NGO EcoAngola. Image by EcoAngola Image Bank. Mongabay: How would you describe the state of the environment in Angola in 2026? Is it better or worse than five years ago? Érica Tavares: It’s always difficult to answer that question — which I am often asked — because one of our major challenges is the analysis of [nonexistent] data and information. To conduct a comparative analysis between now and five years ago, we would need to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/lack-of-data-hinders-fight-against-environmental-crimes-in-angola-says-environmentalist/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/lack-of-data-hinders-fight-against-environmental-crimes-in-angola-says-environmentalist/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-329430</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Angola’s peatlands highly underestimated, new study suggests</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/angolas-peatlands-highly-underestimated-new-study-suggests/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/angolas-peatlands-highly-underestimated-new-study-suggests/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Aug 2026 17:28:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Victoria Schneider]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/21170945/NS111981040_NGSOWP16_Zach-Vincent_0316_River-Expedition_Days-12-13-14_DJI_0023-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=326922</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Economics, Ecosystems, Environment, Freshwater, Governance, Industrial Agriculture, Natural Resources, Oceans, Research, Subsistence Agriculture, and Water]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Southwestern African nation of Angola has much more peatland than previously thought, new research suggests. In a study published on August 20 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, researchers mapped out peatlands in the Angolan Highlands Water Tower (AHWT). This vast landscape stores and regulates freshwater in central Angola and feeds freshwater systems [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Southwestern African nation of Angola has much more peatland than previously thought, new research suggests. In a study published on August 20 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, researchers mapped out peatlands in the Angolan Highlands Water Tower (AHWT). This vast landscape stores and regulates freshwater in central Angola and feeds freshwater systems across southern Africa including the Okavango Basin. The researchers estimate that overall peatlands cover between 2.28–2.94 % of the of the AHWT. They found 8,662 km² (3,344 square miles) of peatland cover with high certainty (81–100% probability) and 11,167 km² (4,311 square miles) with low certainty (51–100% probability). Peatlands are areas of land where the surface layer consists of plant material that has partially decomposed. According to the study, they cover around three per cent of the world’s land surface but are estimated to store up to a third of the world’s soil carbon. In October 2025, Angola designated an area of 53,000 km² (20,463 square miles) in the AHWT as the country’s first Ramsar Site or Wetland of International Importance. The site was selected due to its sponge effect which absorbs, retains, filters, and ultimately supplies freshwater into the rivers that carry water to wetlands far and wide. A water tower is a highland area that produces a large amount of water, relative to its spatial scope. Study author Mauro Lourenço collecting the peat material during the research for this study. Image courtesy of Jennifer Guyton. One of them is the Okavango Delta in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/angolas-peatlands-highly-underestimated-new-study-suggests/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/angolas-peatlands-highly-underestimated-new-study-suggests/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-326922</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Protect Antarctic krill to preserve the health of Africa&#8217;s coastal communities (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/protect-antarctic-krill-to-preserve-the-health-of-africas-coastal-communities-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/protect-antarctic-krill-to-preserve-the-health-of-africas-coastal-communities-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jun 2026 16:06:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carmen dos Santos]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/10/19140157/16238835137_bc4b034208_h-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321376</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Central Africa, Global, and Southern Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Aquaculture, Biodiversity, Coastal Ecosystems, Commentary, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Fisheries, Fishing, food security, Governance, Marine, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, Overfishing, and Whales]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This week, as governments of various coastal states gather in Mombasa, Kenya, for the Our Ocean Conference, Africa must demand an end to industrial krill fishing in the Southern Ocean before irreversible damage is done to Antarctica and the ocean systems upon which our continent depends. A clear call from Africa would bolster international calls [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This week, as governments of various coastal states gather in Mombasa, Kenya, for the Our Ocean Conference, Africa must demand an end to industrial krill fishing in the Southern Ocean before irreversible damage is done to Antarctica and the ocean systems upon which our continent depends. A clear call from Africa would bolster international calls for a ban on industrial krill fishing and support positive leadership developments like the European Parliament’s recent call for a moratorium on krill fishing. The Southern Ocean regulates global ocean circulation, absorbs enormous quantities of heat and carbon dioxide, and sustains marine life across the planet. At the center of this system is Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), the tiny crustacean that feeds whales, penguins, seals and seabirds while helping lock carbon into the deep ocean. Industrial krill fishing has expanded rapidly over the last few years, with the largest share of this extraction controlled by fleets linked to certain European and Asian countries. Most concerningly, fishing is intensifying precisely where Antarctic wildlife is most vulnerable: critical feeding grounds for whales, penguins and seals are actively targeted by the industry. A single adult Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is usually just five centimeters long, but the importance of its massive populations to marine food chains, and the millions of people who depend on ocean protein as part of their daily diet, is major. Image courtesy of Uwe Kils via Wikimedia Commons. The damage is already visible. In April, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classified&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/protect-antarctic-krill-to-preserve-the-health-of-africas-coastal-communities-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/protect-antarctic-krill-to-preserve-the-health-of-africas-coastal-communities-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321376</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Photos: Top new species from 2025</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/photos-top-new-species-from-2025/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/photos-top-new-species-from-2025/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Dec 2025 14:22:20 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/29141103/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-5.12.22-PM-1-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312133</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Andes, Angola, Atlantic Ocean, Brazil, Cerrado, Global, Himalayas, India, Peru, and Tanzania]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Acoustic, Amphibians, Animals, Biodiversity, Captive Breeding, Climate Change, Cloud Forests, Conservation, Deep Sea, Deforestation, DNA, Ecosystem Services, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Farming, Forests, Fungi, Habitat Loss, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Indigenous Peoples, Invasive Species, Marine, Mining, Oceans, Old Growth Forests, Pollution, Protected Areas, Ranching, Research, Science, Snakes, Species, Species Discovery, Swamps, Threatened species, Traditional Knowledge, Traditional People, Trees, Tropical Forests, and Water]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The world still holds its secrets. Hidden under wet rocks, in the ocean&#8217;s twilight crevices, and in the minutiae of the genetic code are creatures unknown and unnamed by the human species. Every year, scientists find hundreds of new animals, insects, plants and fungi. This year, researchers described a tiny new marsupial, a new Himalayan [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The world still holds its secrets. Hidden under wet rocks, in the ocean&#8217;s twilight crevices, and in the minutiae of the genetic code are creatures unknown and unnamed by the human species. Every year, scientists find hundreds of new animals, insects, plants and fungi. This year, researchers described a tiny new marsupial, a new Himalayan bat, an ancient tree, a bright blue butterfly, a parrot snake, and a fairy lantern plant, among others. &#8220;I think most people believe that we know most species on Earth,&#8221; Mario Moura, a professor at the Federal University of Paraíba in Brazil, told Mongabay, &#8220;but in the best-case scenario, we know 20% of Earth&#8217;s species.&#8221; Some estimate that only 10% of all the species on the planet have been described. Unfortunately, many species may be threatened with extinction before they’re even formally named — victims of human activities like development and climate change. Some of these species could be food or medicine for humans, but each plays a unique role in Earth’s interconnected web of life. “We’re understanding more and more that every species on the planet has a role, and in one way or another, is linked to our well-being through the part they play in ecosystems,&#8221; said Boris Worm, a marine conservation biologist who co-authored a study that quantifies the number of undescribed species on land and in the ocean. “We can’t protect them … if we don’t know them.&#8221; Atlantic manta ray (Mobula yarae) with a diver off the coast of Mexico. Originally&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/photos-top-new-species-from-2025/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/photos-top-new-species-from-2025/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312133</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Scientists chart a new source, and length, for Africa&#8217;s famous Zambezi River</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/scientists-chart-a-new-source-and-length-for-africas-famous-zambezi-river/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/scientists-chart-a-new-source-and-length-for-africas-famous-zambezi-river/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Dec 2025 20:26:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/03150506/Adobe-Express-file-37-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310534</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Southern Africa, and Zambia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Conservation, Degraded Lands, Dry Forests, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Policy, forest degradation, Freshwater, Grasslands, Monitoring, Research, Rivers, Trees, Tropics, Water, and Wetlands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A new study suggests that the Zambezi River, Africa’s fourth-longest, is 11% longer than previously thought, with its most distant source lying in Angola, not Zambia. While the finding leaves the Zambezi as Africa’s fourth-longest river — after the Nile, the Congo and the Niger — the redefinition of its most distant source underscores Angola’s [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A new study suggests that the Zambezi River, Africa’s fourth-longest, is 11% longer than previously thought, with its most distant source lying in Angola, not Zambia. While the finding leaves the Zambezi as Africa’s fourth-longest river — after the Nile, the Congo and the Niger — the redefinition of its most distant source underscores Angola’s enormous contribution to sustaining the river best known for Victoria Falls. This newly identified source in Angola’s southern highlands sits 3,421 kilometers (2,126 miles) from the Zambezi’s mouth at the Indian Ocean — 342 km (213 mi) farther than its original source, a spring bubbling out of the ground in a marshy patch of woodland near the Zambian town of Mwinilunga. The source of the Lungwebungu River in Angola: Spanning a total of 1,032 km (640 miles), the river is an essential water source, contributing significantly to the flow of the upper Zambezi River. Image courtesy Rainer von Brandis /The Wilderness Project/NGOWP. The geographic definition of a river’s source is the farthest point from its mouth, and based on that criterion, the team behind the study published in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences has identified the source of the Zambezi as a small trickle oozing from a peatland bog in southern Angola, which is also the source of a river known as the Lungwebungu. Lead author Rainer von Brandis of The Wilderness Project (TWP), a group of scientists and explorers that conducted the study, says the findings highlight the critical importance of the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/scientists-chart-a-new-source-and-length-for-africas-famous-zambezi-river/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/scientists-chart-a-new-source-and-length-for-africas-famous-zambezi-river/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310534</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Discovery of dazzling blue butterfly underscores peril facing Angola&#8217;s forests </title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/discovery-of-dazzling-blue-butterfly-underscores-peril-facing-angolas-forests/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/discovery-of-dazzling-blue-butterfly-underscores-peril-facing-angolas-forests/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Sep 2025 06:27:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/02145151/e0f3ff0a-b3b3-4107-9183-9be85255d203-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305307</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Birds, Community Development, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Deforestation, Drinking Water, Environment, Fires, forest degradation, Forests, Governance, Grasslands, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Montane Forests, Mountains, New Discovery, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Reforestation, Research, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Francis’s gorgeous sapphire — a new-to-science species of butterfly — has just been described in the high-altitude evergreen forests of western Angola. The identification of Iolaus francisi, with its shimmering blue upper wings bordered with black, and silvery underwings patterned with orange and brown lines highlights once more the rich biodiversity of the country&#8217;s most [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Francis’s gorgeous sapphire — a new-to-science species of butterfly — has just been described in the high-altitude evergreen forests of western Angola. The identification of Iolaus francisi, with its shimmering blue upper wings bordered with black, and silvery underwings patterned with orange and brown lines highlights once more the rich biodiversity of the country&#8217;s most threatened habitat. Ecologist Alan Gardiner recalls the exciting moment he and Zimbabwean lepidopterists (butterfly experts) Jonathan Francis and Shabani Ndarama first saw a male sapphire shining in a forest patch during an expedition to the Namba Mountains in Cuanza Sul province in May 2023. “It&#8217;s always special when you see something like that,&#8221; says Gardiner, head of applied research at the South African Wildlife College. &#8220;It’s so much more vivid than you can get in a picture.” &nbsp; Described recently in the journal Zootaxa, Francis’s gorgeous sapphire is now one of 13 unique butterflies known only from this region. Its caterpillars feed on the leaves of Phragmanthera mistletoes and mimic the hairy buds growing on the stems. Francis had collected two caterpillars of the butterfly in the Namba Mountains during an earlier trip in October 2022. He reared them back home in Zimbabwe, feeding them on the leaves of mistletoe plants he had cultivated in his Harare garden years earlier. “If I didn’t have the [mistletoe] leaves, I would have lost them.” The butterflies that emerged were both females, with distinctive undersides bearing an extra stripe that no other Iolaus butterflies have, he says. But&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/discovery-of-dazzling-blue-butterfly-underscores-peril-facing-angolas-forests/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/discovery-of-dazzling-blue-butterfly-underscores-peril-facing-angolas-forests/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-305307</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Pandemic-era slump in ivory and pangolin scale trafficking persists, report finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/pandemic-era-slump-in-ivory-and-pangolin-scale-trafficking-persists-report-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/pandemic-era-slump-in-ivory-and-pangolin-scale-trafficking-persists-report-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jun 2025 08:31:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/17082738/White-belliedPangolin_Gabon_BureaubenjaminINaturalistBYNC4.0-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=300838</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Asia, Cameroon, Central Africa, China, Democratic Republic Of Congo, East Asia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Bushmeat, Conservation, Crime, Critically Endangered Species, Ecology, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Hunting, Ivory, Law Enforcement, Mammals, Over-hunting, Pangolins, Poaching, Rainforests, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A recent report surveying seizures of pangolin scales and elephant ivory over the past decade has found a sharp decline following the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from media reports, public documents, and criminal intelligence and investigations, analysts at the Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC) found authorities seized more than 370 metric tons of pangolin scales and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A recent report surveying seizures of pangolin scales and elephant ivory over the past decade has found a sharp decline following the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from media reports, public documents, and criminal intelligence and investigations, analysts at the Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC) found authorities seized more than 370 metric tons of pangolin scales and 193 metric tons of elephant ivory between 2015 and 2024. Seizures began to ramp up in 2015, peaked in 2019, and then declined sharply in 2020. The report found that the pandemic disruption to trade and travel, coinciding with increased enforcement based on intelligence, prompted these declines. Post-pandemic, the decline in trade has continued to hold as countries intensify law enforcement and intelligence gathering. “The report was motivated by a need to present up-to-date findings and offer a current assessment of the evolving criminal dynamics surrounding ivory and pangolin scale trafficking,” Olivia Swaak-Goldman, WJC’s executive director, told Mongabay by email. “From our investigations, we knew there had been some major changes since our last reports … so it was timely to publish updated analysis and highlight these shifts.” Pangolin scales act as armor to protect their body. The WJC report estimates that the 370 tons of pangolin scales seized over the past decade would have come from anywhere between 100,000 and a million pangolins. Image by flowcomm via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0). Pangolin scales, used in traditional medicine, are in high demand in East Asia. Over the past decade, as Asian pangolin numbers plummeted,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/pandemic-era-slump-in-ivory-and-pangolin-scale-trafficking-persists-report-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/pandemic-era-slump-in-ivory-and-pangolin-scale-trafficking-persists-report-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-300838</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>26 elephants from Namibia moved to Angola’s only private conservation area</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/26-elephants-from-namibia-moved-to-angolas-only-private-conservation-area/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/26-elephants-from-namibia-moved-to-angolas-only-private-conservation-area/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Oct 2024 09:10:08 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jim Tan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/10/07075148/Image3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=288267</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Elephants, Endangered Species, Extinction, Mammals, Over-hunting, Poaching, Protected Areas, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Cuatir Conservation Area, ANGOLA — On Sept. 2, a team from Namibia’s Okonjati Game Reserve completed the last of four arduous translocations, taking a total of 26 elephants across the border to Cuatir Conservation Area in Angola. The 200-square-kilometer (77-square-mile) Cuatir Conservation Area, set up by Namibian-born conservationist Stefan van Wyk, is possibly the only [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Cuatir Conservation Area, ANGOLA — On Sept. 2, a team from Namibia’s Okonjati Game Reserve completed the last of four arduous translocations, taking a total of 26 elephants across the border to Cuatir Conservation Area in Angola. The 200-square-kilometer (77-square-mile) Cuatir Conservation Area, set up by Namibian-born conservationist Stefan van Wyk, is possibly the only private conservation area currently in Angola. “I think Stefan is creating something new in Angola,” says Miguel Xavier, director of Angola’s National Institute for Biodiversity and Protected Areas (INBAC). “We don’t have this kind of structure in Angola, personally, I think it’s a good opportunity.” The conservation and ecotourism potential of southeastern Angola has been an increasingly hot topic in recent years among conservationists looking to create space for wildlife, and among Angolan leaders peering across the border at the tourism dollars pouring into Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Elephants at Okanjati Game Reserve in Namibia. Image by Jim Tan for Mongabay. An elephant takes its first steps onto Cuatir Conservation Area. Image by Jim Tan for Mongabay. Wildlife populations in the vast Cuando Cubango province in southeastern Angola were decimated during the nation’s 27-year civil war. Since the war, which ended in 2002, the province has remained sparsely populated, in large part due to poor access; the 360-kilometer (220-mile) journey from Mavinga to the provincial capital of Menongue often takes well over 12 hours in a six-wheel truck. Southeastern Angola offers a rare opportunity of available space for wildlife in an increasingly crowded world. Private conservation&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/26-elephants-from-namibia-moved-to-angolas-only-private-conservation-area/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/26-elephants-from-namibia-moved-to-angolas-only-private-conservation-area/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-288267</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Jumbo collaring effort reveals key elephant movement corridors</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/jumbo-collaring-effort-reveals-key-elephant-movement-corridors/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/jumbo-collaring-effort-reveals-key-elephant-movement-corridors/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Sep 2024 12:23:49 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhishyant Kidangoor]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhishyantkidangoor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/09/25121712/elephant-herd-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=287840</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Southern Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Elephants, Environment, GPS, Research, Technology, Tracking, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The first time Robin Naidoo mapped GPS data points to track elephant movement in Southern Africa, he was in for a surprise. Across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA), one of the largest conservation areas in the world, he observed movement patterns and trends never seen before. “It was like a parallel universe that had [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The first time Robin Naidoo mapped GPS data points to track elephant movement in Southern Africa, he was in for a surprise. Across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA), one of the largest conservation areas in the world, he observed movement patterns and trends never seen before. “It was like a parallel universe that had opened up,” Naidoo, lead scientist of wildlife conservation at the World Wildlife Fund, told Mongabay in a video interview. Unlocking that universe took a mammoth collaboration that involved collaring 300 African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in an area that spans five countries and is home to the largest population of African elephants in the world. The final result is possibly one of the largest databases of GPS-collared elephants. It contains close to 4 million data points that depict elephant movements and identify key connectivity areas and corridors for conservation purposes. A study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology documented how teams from WWF along with nonprofit organizations such as Ecoexist and Elephant Connection, among others, collaborated on the project, which used data collected over the past 15 years to examine connectivity for elephants. Based on the elephants’ movements, the team assessed landscape connectivity at three scales: a zoomed-in micro perspective, between protected areas as well as across the wider landscape. According to the study, each of these scales represented “a movement process whose maintenance is critical to effectively conserve elephants across the entire landscape.” African elephants, the largest land animals on Earth, are an endangered&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/jumbo-collaring-effort-reveals-key-elephant-movement-corridors/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/jumbo-collaring-effort-reveals-key-elephant-movement-corridors/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-287840</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Meet the Miombo, the largest forest you’ve never heard of</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/meet-the-miombo-the-largest-forest-youve-never-heard-of/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/meet-the-miombo-the-largest-forest-youve-never-heard-of/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Sep 2024 16:20:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ruth Kamnitzer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/08/29092238/Thatch2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=286629</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Democratic Republic Of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Deforestation, Dry Forests, Environment, food security, Forest Products, Forests, Sustainable Forest Management, Trees, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Growing up in the village of Domboshava in central Zimbabwe, Edwin Tambara, the African Wildlife Foundation’s director of global leadership, recalls how the surrounding Miombo woodland was a pharmacy, hardware store and supermarket, all rolled into one. “You get a cough or sneeze or you have a headache, I remember my grandmother would just say, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Growing up in the village of Domboshava in central Zimbabwe, Edwin Tambara, the African Wildlife Foundation’s director of global leadership, recalls how the surrounding Miombo woodland was a pharmacy, hardware store and supermarket, all rolled into one. “You get a cough or sneeze or you have a headache, I remember my grandmother would just say, ‘OK, let me go into the forest,’ and she&#8217;ll come back with some leaves. . . It&#8217;s either they&#8217;re boiled and you have to sniff them or something — and you&#8217;d be sorted,” Tambara says. The Miombo woodlands are a special type of semi-deciduous forest, dominated by trees in the legume family from the genera Brachystegia, Julbernardia and Isoberlinia. The ecoregion covers a broad swath across Central and Southern Africa, making it the most extensive dry tropical forest type in the world. But the woodlands are shrinking, which is bad news for communities in the region who depend on them for an astounding array of goods. Miombo woodlands in the Niassa Special Reserve in Mozambique, one of Africa’s largest protected areas. The miombo woodlands are dominated by trees in the legume family from the genera Brachystegia, Julbernardia and Isoberlinia, and interspersed with a mosaic of habitats including rocky outcrops and seasonally flooded grassy areas called dambos. Image by Natalie Ingle, courtesy of Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Thatching grass collected in the miombo woodlands. Thatching grass is used to roof homes, woven into fences and for other purposes, and is one of the numerous non-timber forest&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/meet-the-miombo-the-largest-forest-youve-never-heard-of/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/meet-the-miombo-the-largest-forest-youve-never-heard-of/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-286629</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As southern African freshwater fish &#038; fisheries struggle, collaboration is key (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/as-southern-african-freshwater-fish-fisheries-struggle-collaboration-is-key-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/as-southern-african-freshwater-fish-fisheries-struggle-collaboration-is-key-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Aug 2024 18:59:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gail Thomson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/08/22171826/Photo-3_Marcus-Westberg-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=286450</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Southern Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Ecosystems, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Food, food security, Freshwater, Freshwater Fish, Governance, Overfishing, Solutions, Traditional Knowledge, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Scientists, communities and government officials from five African countries agree that the freshwater fish stocks in the Kavango and Zambezi River systems are in severe trouble. Delegates representing all three of these stakeholder groups came together in Windhoek, Namibia in July 2024 to share their knowledge and find ways to address this urgent situation. The [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Scientists, communities and government officials from five African countries agree that the freshwater fish stocks in the Kavango and Zambezi River systems are in severe trouble. Delegates representing all three of these stakeholder groups came together in Windhoek, Namibia in July 2024 to share their knowledge and find ways to address this urgent situation. The Kavango-Zambezi Trans-frontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) derives its name from two mighty rivers that flow through the five countries that are part of KAZA: Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. While this massive conservation area – spanning over half a million square kilometers – is best known for its huge elephant population and other charismatic wildlife on land, the rivers are its lifeblood. The Kavango River starts in the upper highlands of Angola (where it is known as the Cubango) and flows into the world-famous Okavango Delta in Botswana. Along the way, it forms part of the Namibia-Angola border and crosses Namibia at one of its narrowest points. The Zambezi River starts in Zambia, flows through Angola before re-entering Zambia, touches Namibia’s eastern tip and plunges over Victoria Falls (Mosi-oa-Tunya), forming the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe until it enters Mozambique. The Okavango River. Photo courtesy of Marcus Westberg. The Okavango Delta and Victoria Falls are two of the top tourist attractions in the region, and “Rivers of Life” is the aptly chosen brand for tourism in KAZA. Nonetheless, tourism wasn’t the main reason why community representatives, scientists and government officials from the KAZA countries&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/as-southern-african-freshwater-fish-fisheries-struggle-collaboration-is-key-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-286450</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>All conservation is local: Interview with Angolan conservationist Kerllen Costa</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/all-conservation-is-local-interview-with-angolan-conservationist-kerllen-costa/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/all-conservation-is-local-interview-with-angolan-conservationist-kerllen-costa/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 May 2024 10:14:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/05/21143132/36.KerllenCostaAndStaff_MtMocoAngola_KissamaFoundation-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=282336</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Birds, Community Development, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Deforestation, Drinking Water, Fires, forest degradation, Grasslands, Mountains, Rainforests, and Reforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MOUNT MOCO, Angola — Kerllen Costa was raised in Angola with a love of nature and the outdoors. He started his career by volunteering on an Angolan sea turtle conservation project, and later obtained a degree in environmental sciences from South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal. Since 2015, he has worked with a conservation project run [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MOUNT MOCO, Angola — Kerllen Costa was raised in Angola with a love of nature and the outdoors. He started his career by volunteering on an Angolan sea turtle conservation project, and later obtained a degree in environmental sciences from South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal. Since 2015, he has worked with a conservation project run by the Kissama Foundation at Mount Moco, in Angola’s Huambo Highlands, whose grasslands and forests are home to an array of unique plants and animals. As Kissama’s project manager, Costa is incorporating what he calls a “more anthropological view of things” in his work. In an interview conducted at the project’s tree nursery at the foot of Mount Moco, Angola’s highest mountain, Costa told Mongabay that securing protected status for an area of high biodiversity value is useful, but the work of conservation doesn’t end there. He says protection of nature and landscapes can best be sustained by leaning on ancient relationships that local communities already have with their environment. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Mongabay: One of your personal interests is in promoting what are known as “other effective conservation measures.” How can that approach apply to a place like Mount Moco? Kerllen Costa: I’m a firm believer that the majority of conservation statutes that exist did not — and still don’t — take into account certain sociocultural dynamics in whatever part of the world [you’re in]. They don’t take into account the fact that there are people who&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/all-conservation-is-local-interview-with-angolan-conservationist-kerllen-costa/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/all-conservation-is-local-interview-with-angolan-conservationist-kerllen-costa/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-282336</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Tracing Africa’s ‘fading biological fingerprints’ in Angola’s threatened forests</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/tracing-africas-fading-biological-fingerprints-in-angolas-threatened-forests/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/tracing-africas-fading-biological-fingerprints-in-angolas-threatened-forests/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 May 2024 10:13:28 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/05/21162955/5.GabrielJamie_MtMocoAngola_RyanTruscottMongabay-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=282350</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Birds, Community Development, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Deforestation, Drinking Water, Fires, forest degradation, Grasslands, Mountains, Rainforests, and Reforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MOUNT MOCO, Angola — “Another one incoming,” shouts ornithologist Michael Mills to his colleague crouching a few meters away on the flanks of Mount Moco, Angola’s highest mountain. “Oh heck, it’s gone over the top.” The small brown bird with a pale breast and ginger crown had already twice bounced off a mist net strung [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MOUNT MOCO, Angola — “Another one incoming,” shouts ornithologist Michael Mills to his colleague crouching a few meters away on the flanks of Mount Moco, Angola’s highest mountain. “Oh heck, it’s gone over the top.” The small brown bird with a pale breast and ginger crown had already twice bounced off a mist net strung between two aluminum poles and nearby bushes along a narrow, slippery mountain path flanked by bracken, grass and shrubby sand olives. Mills and University of Cambridge evolutionary biologist Gabriel Jamie had captured the bird’s mate and were hoping to trap him too. Jamie plays a recording of the bird’s distinctive call, a series of high-pitched whistles and trills. Within minutes the male bird returns and is trapped in the net — but only for an instant: he escapes through a hole. The Huambo cisticola is a small insect-eating bird that feeds and lives on the edges of Afromontane forest patches. It is most often seen in places like Mount Moco and the nearby Namba Mountains. Image courtesy Michael Mills. Gabriel Jamie (right) and Michael Mills set up a mist net on Mount Moco to catch Huambo cisticolas. Image by Ryan Truscott for Mongabay Protecting a unique and dwindling habitat The site of all this activity is a patch of restored Afromontane forest growing above the village of Kanjonde, at the foot of Mount Moco, in Angola’s western Huambo Highlands. The birds the two scientists are trying to catch are Huambo cisticolas (Cisticola bailunduensis), a species&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/tracing-africas-fading-biological-fingerprints-in-angolas-threatened-forests/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-282350</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A forest restoration project brings birdsong back to Angola’s highest mountain</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/a-forest-restoration-project-brings-birdsong-back-to-angolas-highest-mountain/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/a-forest-restoration-project-brings-birdsong-back-to-angolas-highest-mountain/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 May 2024 19:36:09 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/05/20104539/13.TurbidityTubeTraining_MtMocoAngola_RyanTruscottMongabay-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=282258</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Birds, Community Development, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Drinking Water, Fires, forest degradation, Grasslands, Mountains, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, and Reforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MOUNT MOCO, Angola — On the slopes of Angola’s highest mountain stands the gray jagged stump of a once mighty tree. It’s the remnant of a Guinea plum (Parinari excelsa), a species native to Mount Moco’s evergreen forests. When South African ornithologist Michael Mills first started to survey the mountain’s forests in 2005, it was [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MOUNT MOCO, Angola — On the slopes of Angola’s highest mountain stands the gray jagged stump of a once mighty tree. It’s the remnant of a Guinea plum (Parinari excelsa), a species native to Mount Moco’s evergreen forests. When South African ornithologist Michael Mills first started to survey the mountain’s forests in 2005, it was a tall tree with a crown of evergreen leaves flourishing beside a small stream. “A fire got in, and got into the roots and killed it,” he says. The mountain’s Afromontane forests once formed large, dark-green patches against the lighter green and golden-brown shades of Moco’s grasslands as they changed with the seasons. Fires and the harvesting of timber for firewood and building materials have reduced many of these forest patches to narrow ribbons surviving along steep gullies and ravines. This makes it easier for them to be overrun by fires or other threats, as no part of these remnants is far from the edge. “If you had a completely circular patch it would have much less edge than a patch with the same area which is long and narrow,” Mills says. Afromontane forests are high-altitude evergreen rainforests that are isolated remnants of a once widespread ecosystem now confined to mountainsides and hilltops across East, Southern and Central Africa. In 1973, the forest above the village of Kanjonde was large and circular, with a well-developed canopy, according to one historical photograph. A photograph taken in 2016 from the same position shows that almost all the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/a-forest-restoration-project-brings-birdsong-back-to-angolas-highest-mountain/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/a-forest-restoration-project-brings-birdsong-back-to-angolas-highest-mountain/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-282258</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Analysis of largest elephant surveys ever shows stable population, but disturbing trends</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/analysis-of-largest-elephant-surveys-ever-shows-stable-population-but-disturbing-trends/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/analysis-of-largest-elephant-surveys-ever-shows-stable-population-but-disturbing-trends/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Apr 2024 10:26:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jim Tan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/04/08192723/2Elephants_MoremiNPBotswana_serena_tangFlickrBYNCND2.0-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=280753</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Southern Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Charismatic Animals, Conservation, Elephants, Environment, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Migration, Research, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Ten years ago, says Mike Chase, the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area was one fluid contiguous elephant habitat. “An elephant could be in Botswana in the morning, midday in Zimbabwe and in the evening cross over into Zambia or Namibia,” Chase, founder of the conservation NGO Elephants Without Borders, tells Mongabay. “It appears that that [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Ten years ago, says Mike Chase, the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area was one fluid contiguous elephant habitat. “An elephant could be in Botswana in the morning, midday in Zimbabwe and in the evening cross over into Zambia or Namibia,” Chase, founder of the conservation NGO Elephants Without Borders, tells Mongabay. “It appears that that vision of an interconnected landscape is now being compromised.” The 520,000-square-kilometer (201,000-square-mile) area known as the KAZA stretches across Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It was established in 2006 with a vision of the region’s megafauna roaming free, unencumbered by the constraints of political borders. More than half the world’s savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) live in this transfrontier area. Chase’s EWB, based in Botswana, has just published an analysis comparing the two largest-ever aerial elephant surveys ever completed: the Great Elephant Census, a pan-African survey led by Chase spanning 18 countries and conducted in 2014 and 2015; and the 2022 KAZA Elephant Survey commissioned by the KAZA Secretariat, covering the five countries of the transfrontier conservation area with additional data from a 2018 EWB survey in Botswana. Elephants in the Okavango Delta. Image by Michael Levine-Clark via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Aerial shot of a river in the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. Image by Mark W Atkinson/WCS via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0) “It is critical to have up-to-date information on the size and status of elephant populations to understand the status of the species,” says George Wittemyer, a professor at Colorado State University&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/analysis-of-largest-elephant-surveys-ever-shows-stable-population-but-disturbing-trends/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/analysis-of-largest-elephant-surveys-ever-shows-stable-population-but-disturbing-trends/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-280753</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Count, connect, conserve: Southern Africa elephant survey points the way (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/count-connect-conserve-southern-africa-elephant-survey-points-the-way-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/count-connect-conserve-southern-africa-elephant-survey-points-the-way-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Jan 2024 20:32:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Lisa SteelMichael KnightRobin NaidooRussell TaylorSteven A. Osofsky]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/03181512/Image_1_KAZA-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277336</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Southern Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Charismatic Animals, Commentary, Conservation, Elephants, Environment, Fences, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Migration, Research, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the more than 10 years since Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe signed a 2011 treaty to create the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area – the world’s largest transboundary terrestrial conservation area – much has been accomplished. Much also remains to be done. The 2022 KAZA Elephant Survey was a remarkable achievement. It [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the more than 10 years since Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe signed a 2011 treaty to create the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area – the world’s largest transboundary terrestrial conservation area – much has been accomplished. Much also remains to be done. The 2022 KAZA Elephant Survey was a remarkable achievement. It was the first time that Africa’s largest savanna elephant population was surveyed in a fully coordinated and synchronized manner, setting a new benchmark for aerial surveys for which the KAZA Secretariat and partner states deserve much praise; this was truly a major milestone in collaborative management of a globally unique wildlife resource. A typical double veterinary cordon fence in the region. Photo courtesy of M. Atkinson / Animal and Human Health for the Environment and Development (AHEAD) program at Cornell University. KAZA’s elephant population was estimated to be 227,900 (±95% CL 16,743), representing the majority of what’s left of Africa’s elephants. The survey also noted relatively high carcass ratios suggestive of elevated mortality, warranting further investigation as a potential warning sign for the health and stability of this globally important elephant population. Quantifying a wildlife population like this (and understanding its distribution in both space and time) is necessary to inform its management. But counting does not automatically lead to positive conservation outcomes. Many refer to KAZA’s elephants as a metapopulation, as one contiguous group of animals. But that characterization is increasingly misleading, as visible habitat fragmentation continues to take its toll. The habitat corridors&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/count-connect-conserve-southern-africa-elephant-survey-points-the-way-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/count-connect-conserve-southern-africa-elephant-survey-points-the-way-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-277336</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New study pushes for protection of one of Africa’s ‘least understood treasures’</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/new-study-pushes-for-protection-of-one-of-africas-least-understood-treasures/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/new-study-pushes-for-protection-of-one-of-africas-least-understood-treasures/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Nov 2023 07:30:14 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/11/14104940/Aerial-view-of-the-NGOWP-teams-mekoro-along-the-Cuando-River-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=275312</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Southern Africa, and Tropics]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Climate Change, Conflict, Conservation, Degraded Lands, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Forest Destruction, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Lakes, Peatlands, Rivers, Tropics, Water, and Wetlands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Indigenous residents of the highlands of southeastern Angola have long lived there with a light touch. Ironically, with the end of the country’s civil war and the slow return of central government and development, new activity may threaten the source of water for a vast expanse of Southern Africa, including the Angolan capital, Luanda, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Indigenous residents of the highlands of southeastern Angola have long lived there with a light touch. Ironically, with the end of the country’s civil war and the slow return of central government and development, new activity may threaten the source of water for a vast expanse of Southern Africa, including the Angolan capital, Luanda, and the vast inland delta of the Okavango River. Located on the Bié Plateau, which rises in places to more than 1,800 meters (5,900 feet), this region charges underground aquifers and creates the headwaters for some of the continent’s largest rivers: the Okavango, the Congo, the Zambezi. The Cuanza River also rises here, before flowing nearly 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) north and west to where it supplies water to the 9.2 million inhabitants of Luanda. Using 41 years of precipitation data, Mauro Lourenco estimates that the water tower receives around 423 cubic kilometers (101 cubic miles) of rainfall each year — equivalent to 170 million Olympic-size swimming pools. Angola’s meteorological stations collapsed during the 1975-2002 civil war, so Lourenco relied on data gathered remotely by the U.S.-based Climate Hazards Center, known by the acronym CHIRPS. The rain falling over the highlands is critical for recharging freshwater lakes and marshy peatlands that occur along narrow drainage lines and store up this rainwater during the region’s summer, before slowly releasing it during the dry winter months. Aerial view of the Cuando River. The National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project’s 2018 expedition focused on the eastern-most section of their&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/new-study-pushes-for-protection-of-one-of-africas-least-understood-treasures/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/new-study-pushes-for-protection-of-one-of-africas-least-understood-treasures/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-275312</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Forests &#038; finance: Fears for forests in Angola, flashes of hope from Kenya &#038; Ghana</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/forests-finance-fears-for-forests-in-angola-flashes-of-hope-from-kenya-ghana/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/forests-finance-fears-for-forests-in-angola-flashes-of-hope-from-kenya-ghana/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Jul 2023 23:45:50 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/07/31230345/RoadsideCharcoal_PracaDaMangueirasAngola2_CarstenTenBrinkBYNCND2.0-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=271647</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Central Africa, East Africa, Ghana, Kenya, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[charcoal, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Logging, Timber, timber trade, Trade, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Ghanaian researchers diligently working to save two endangered tree species Ghanaian scientists are cultivating seedlings of two critically endangered tree species while searching forests across the country for surviving Talbotiella gentii and Aubregrinia taiensis in the wild. T. gentii, an evergreen with a thick trunk and a dense spreading crown that produces sweet-smelling pale pink [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Ghanaian researchers diligently working to save two endangered tree species Ghanaian scientists are cultivating seedlings of two critically endangered tree species while searching forests across the country for surviving Talbotiella gentii and Aubregrinia taiensis in the wild. T. gentii, an evergreen with a thick trunk and a dense spreading crown that produces sweet-smelling pale pink flowers, was once common in the dry forest zones of southwestern Ghana. As forests here have been cut down for agriculture, isolated patches of this tree are now found only in forest reserves at Bandai Hills and Yongwa. A. taiensis, also known as the great tiger-nut tree or duatadwe kese in the Akan language, whose buttressed trunk can grow up to 50 meters (164 feet) tall, was previously found across forested zones in southern Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. The only known wild specimens today are in Ghana’s Bia Tano Forest Reserve. Aubregrinia taiensis. Image courtesy Paris, Muséum National d&#8217;Histoire Naturelle via Wikicommons (CC BY 4.0) James Amponsah, a research scientist at the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG), a division of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Ghana, told Mongabay that agriculture, illegal logging and rapidly expanding illegal mining are the leading threats to both tree species and the forests they thrive in. “Regarding the Aubregrinia taiensis, what makes the situation a bit serious is that, from the year 2019, we have been doing an extensive survey in the forest reserves of Ghana and we have only found 16 trees, and about seven of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/forests-finance-fears-for-forests-in-angola-flashes-of-hope-from-kenya-ghana/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/forests-finance-fears-for-forests-in-angola-flashes-of-hope-from-kenya-ghana/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-271647</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Forests &#038; Finance: Wood export bans and short-staffed regulators</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/forests-finance-wood-export-bans-and-short-staffed-regulators/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/forests-finance-wood-export-bans-and-short-staffed-regulators/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Jul 2023 14:25:36 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/07/14124833/A_Lumberjack_marking_a_log-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=270926</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Cameroon, and Uganda]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Logging, Timber, timber trade, Trade, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Uganda announces ban on timber exports KAMPALA — The Ugandan government has banned the export of timber from the East African country. In a directive issued at the end of June, President Yoweri Museveni pointed to indiscriminate harvesting of public and private forests across the country under pretext of exporting timber, and revoked all licenses [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Uganda announces ban on timber exports KAMPALA — The Ugandan government has banned the export of timber from the East African country. In a directive issued at the end of June, President Yoweri Museveni pointed to indiscriminate harvesting of public and private forests across the country under pretext of exporting timber, and revoked all licenses and permits issued for this purpose. Environmental activist Eddie Mukiibi told Mongabay he supports the decision. He said that the country’s forest management agency is failing to regulate a growing timber industry. “The sad reality is that National Forestry Authority is involved in giving out land in former natural forest for pine and eucalyptus growing for export and the EU-funded Sawlog Production Grant propelled this impact,” Mukiibi said. Mukiibi, who is the president of Slow Food International and an agroecological farmer, said that while the ban is a start, timber exports are not the leading cause of deforestation in the country. “President Museveni should also know that the leading cause of deforestation of natural forests in Uganda is the extension of monocultural sugarcane plantations. A case of Mabira and Bugoma forests, these are not cleared for timber export. They have been massively cleared for sugarcane growing and sugar exports. The timber is a byproduct of agribusiness-based deforestation.” From 2002 to 2022, Uganda lost 75,000 hectares (185,000 acres) of humid primary forest, according to forest monitoring group Global Forest Watch. Men sawing wood into planks in Uganda. Image by Douglas Sheil/CIFOR via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/forests-finance-wood-export-bans-and-short-staffed-regulators/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-270926</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Fires threaten Afromontane forests’ ‘whole new world’: Q&#038;A with Martim Melo</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/fires-threaten-afromontane-forests-whole-new-world-qa-with-martim-melo/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/fires-threaten-afromontane-forests-whole-new-world-qa-with-martim-melo/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 May 2023 21:19:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/04/20080653/1-Namba-Species-Bird-Orange_Ground-Trush-%C2%A9LukePowell-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=267661</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Conservation Potential]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Fires, Forests, Governance, Grasslands, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Montane Forests, Mountains, New Discovery, Protected Areas, Research, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[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, scientists have reconstructed the history of this habitat. A prime example are the forests on Angola’s Namba Mountains, which are a link or stepping stone [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[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, scientists have reconstructed the history of this habitat. A prime example are the forests on Angola’s Namba Mountains, which are a link or stepping stone between similar Afromontane habitats in Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania, and others farther west, in Cameroon, according to Martim Melo, a biodiversity researcher at the University of Porto in Portugal. In Angola, these forests are naturally defended against fire by belts of vegetation that don’t easily burn, and which typically offer protection to their moist, species-rich interiors. But excessive, uncontrolled burning by farmers around the forests is undermining the ability of that protective belt to recover, and fires are increasingly entering the forests themselves. If such uncontrolled burning is allowed to persist, the Namba Mountains’ forests could be lost or highly degraded within the next five to 10 years. With them will go the myriad species that live in them, including nearly 90 species of forest bird, some of them unique to Angola. The Namba Mountains are a link or stepping stone between similar Afromontane habitats in Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania, and others far to the west, in Cameroon. Image © Alexandre Vaz. Melo and other scientists are calling for swift action by the Angolan government and conservation charities to protect Namba’s forests. Now back in Portugal, Melo spoke to Mongabay about the Namba Mountain Forests. The&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/fires-threaten-afromontane-forests-whole-new-world-qa-with-martim-melo/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/fires-threaten-afromontane-forests-whole-new-world-qa-with-martim-melo/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-267661</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Forests &#038; finance: Protection and restoration in Cameroon and Senegal, fire threat in Angola</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/forests-finance-protection-and-restoration-in-cameroon-and-senegal-fire-threat-in-angola/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/forests-finance-protection-and-restoration-in-cameroon-and-senegal-fire-threat-in-angola/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Apr 2023 10:30:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/04/13100450/ArtisanalTimberProduction_Cameroon_MokhamadEdliadiCIFORFlickrBYNCND2.0.jpg-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=267436</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Cameroon, North Africa, Senegal, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Community Forests, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Saving Rainforests, Solutions, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[‘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 done to stop uncontrolled fires that threaten to destroy them, scientists warn. These forests are believed to be relics from a time when the habitat [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[‘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 done to stop uncontrolled fires that threaten to destroy them, scientists warn. These forests are believed to be relics from a time when the habitat was more widespreadduring the earth’s glacial cycles, the last of which ended 10,000-12,000 years ago, said Martim Melo, a researcher at the University of Porto’s Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources. Afromontane forests similar to those in the Namba range in the Cuanza Sul province of west-central Angola can also be found more than 2,000 kilometers away, on mountains in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, among others. The relic forests on Angola&#8217;s Namba Mountains are home to 90 bird species, including the threatened Swierstra&#8217;s francolin spurfowl. Scientists surveying the area recently discovered nine new animal species previously unknown to science. Image by Zieger M via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) Nearly 90 different species of bird live in the Namba forests. These include a healthy population of the Swierstra’s francolin (Pternistis swierstrai), a partridge-sized bird with black and white plumage listed as endangered on the IUCN’s Red List of threatened species. Over an 11-day expedition to the forests last May, the scientists found at least nine animals new to science, including two rodents, three bats, two pygmy toads, a frog and a dragonfly. “There are new things&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/forests-finance-protection-and-restoration-in-cameroon-and-senegal-fire-threat-in-angola/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/forests-finance-protection-and-restoration-in-cameroon-and-senegal-fire-threat-in-angola/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-267436</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>CAPS, new gas megaproject, aims to power Central Africa, but at what cost, critics ask</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/caps-new-gas-megaproject-aims-to-power-central-africa-but-at-what-cost-critics-ask/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/caps-new-gas-megaproject-aims-to-power-central-africa-but-at-what-cost-critics-ask/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Apr 2023 13:40:02 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elodie Toto]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/04/11125616/Caps-visual-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=267373</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central Africa, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo Basin, Democratic Republic Of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo, and Rwanda]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Deforestation, Environment, Fossil Fuels, Governance, Land Conflict, Mongabay Data Studio, Natural Gas, and Politics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[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 stretching across 11 countries in the region. But critics say the proposed Central African Pipeline System is a mistake. Nathalie Lum, chairwoman of the Central [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[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 stretching across 11 countries in the region. But critics say the proposed Central African Pipeline System is a mistake. Nathalie Lum, chairwoman of the Central Africa Business Energy Forum (CABEF), an organization that hosts an annual conference of oil and gas corporations and regional energy ministers, told Mongabay that CAPS will help make the Central Africa region an &#8220;energy poverty-free zone” by 2030. “Access to reliable, affordable energy can help reduce poverty, attract investments, and create jobs, while also providing an important source of revenue for governments.” she said. CABEF describes itself as a platform for developing cooperation between Central African countries which aims to use natural gas, a fossil fuel, to power homes and businesses as well as the mining industry. However, a 2020 study by the International Finance Corporation, the private sector development arm of the World Bank Group, suggests that Africa&#8217;s onshore wind potential is enough to satisfy the entire continent’s current electricity demands 250 times over. The continent also has an abundance of solar energy, which is increasingly affordable to harness. ​​According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, the unit cost of electricity from solar has declined by 85% over the past decade, while the cost of wind energy has declined by&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/caps-new-gas-megaproject-aims-to-power-central-africa-but-at-what-cost-critics-ask/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/caps-new-gas-megaproject-aims-to-power-central-africa-but-at-what-cost-critics-ask/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-267373</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study: Online trade in arachnids threatens some species with extinction</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/study-online-trade-in-arachnids-threatens-some-species-with-extinction/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/study-online-trade-in-arachnids-threatens-some-species-with-extinction/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Mar 2023 11:24:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/02/24122811/Harpactira_pulchripes01-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=265931</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Illegal Wildlife Trade]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Angola]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Arachnids, Biodiversity, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Extinction, Illegal Trade, Insects, Pet Trade, Pets, Social Media, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[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 ever.” Examining the spider by headlamp in his camp, the South African entomologist marveled at the horn on its back, longer than any found on [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[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 ever.” Examining the spider by headlamp in his camp, the South African entomologist marveled at the horn on its back, longer than any found on similar species from the same genus, Ceratogyrus, or baboon spiders, because of their hairy appearance. Midgley knew something else: that this eye-catching appendage, given its novelty, would likely put the animals at risk from traders and collectors of exotic pets. He and his team made every effort to mitigate this. When it came to publishing their paper, they intentionally left out the GPS coordinates for where they’d located the species, he recalled. But the spiders are relatively easy to find in the wild, he concedes. “Any experienced collector — legal or illegal — would be able to find several per trip,” he told Mongabay. Now, more than six years after it was revealed to the world, it does appear that some of the spiders known to Angolans as chandachuly and to Midgley and his co-authors as Ceratogyrus attonitifer, have found their way into the online trade. That&#8217;s according to Alice Hughes, the lead author of a recent study on the vast and unregulated global trade in invertebrates. “We only see trade [about chandachuly] being discussed [online] so it is likely occurring at very low levels,” Hughes told Mongabay. “They [collectors] like new things.” (A) Aerial view of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/study-online-trade-in-arachnids-threatens-some-species-with-extinction/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/study-online-trade-in-arachnids-threatens-some-species-with-extinction/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-265931</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Protecting the peatlands and woodlands in Angola’s ‘source of life’</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/protecting-the-peatlands-and-woodlands-in-angolas-source-of-life/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/protecting-the-peatlands-and-woodlands-in-angolas-source-of-life/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Nov 2022 15:31:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/11/11071942/Angola-zebra-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=262497</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Botswana, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, carbon, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Sequestration, Climate Change, Conflict, Conservation, Degraded Lands, Environment, Environmental Law, Forest Carbon, Forest Destruction, Governance, Peatlands, Rivers, and Soil Carbon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[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 Luchazi people. But that’s not the only reason Vladimir Russo has been talking up the Angolan Highlands at this year’s COP27 climate summit in Egypt. “It’s one of the largest [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[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 Luchazi people. But that’s not the only reason Vladimir Russo has been talking up the Angolan Highlands at this year’s COP27 climate summit in Egypt. “It’s one of the largest peatland systems. The latest data that we’ve collected indicates that it’s been growing for 7,000 years. The peat bogs capture lots of carbon and might be a solution for climate change,” he told Mongabay over the phone from the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. Rivers originating in these highlands in southeastern Angola supply three major river basins, including 95% of the water in the Okavango Basin, which feeds Botswana’s wildlife-rich Okavango Delta more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) to the south. Aerial view of peat bogs by Source Lake, Cuando River in Angola. Image © Kostadin Luchansky/National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project. “We are not solely interested in the landscape, but really the function of the peats which operate as a sponge,” Russo said. Russo is an Angolan environmentalist and the technical adviser to the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project (NGOWP), which has carried out extensive scientific research in the highlands over the past decade. The team has identified 16 source lakes in Moxico province. The lakes feed rivers including the Cuito and Cubango, which converge near Angola’s border with Namibia to become the Okavango and flow onward through Namibia’s Caprivi Strip and into Botswana before&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/protecting-the-peatlands-and-woodlands-in-angolas-source-of-life/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-262497</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The mine leak was bad. The DRC and Angola’s response are no better, report says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/the-mine-leak-was-bad-the-drc-and-angolas-response-are-no-better-report-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/the-mine-leak-was-bad-the-drc-and-angolas-response-are-no-better-report-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Oct 2022 12:19:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Anna Weekes]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/10/04115825/Kasai-river-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=261083</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Central Africa, Congo Basin, and Democratic Republic Of Congo]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Chemicals, Drinking Water, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Law, Freshwater, Freshwater Fish, Governance, Human Rights, Industry, Law, Mining, Poisoning, Pollution, Rivers, Social Justice, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[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 are known to have died after exposure to the polluted water. A new report by the International Peace Information Service (IPIS), an independent research institute, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[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 are known to have died after exposure to the polluted water. A new report by the International Peace Information Service (IPIS), an independent research institute, says the spill at the Sociedade Mineira de Catoca mine has had long-lasting negative impacts on river-dependent communities downstream in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. When the dam ruptured on July 27, 2021, it sent large volumes of mining waste into the Lova River, which spread quickly into the Tshikapa and Kasai rivers, turning them red for hundreds of kilometers downstream. IPIS analyzed media coverage and official statements by Catoca and the Angolan and DRC governments, as well as reports from local nonprofit organizations, members of parliament, and academic researchers. It concluded that the mine and both governments have kept the public in the dark about what exactly leaked into the rivers, killing thousands of fish and leading to a ban on fishing in the rivers and extracting water that is still in place 14 months later. Catoca took water samples in 2021 and said the water that escaped its dam contained only natural rocks and clay. “To the layman, this does not seem to be a problem. However, the determination ‘sand and clay’ says nothing about the chemical composition of such particles,” the IPIS report says. While the DRC government ran its&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/the-mine-leak-was-bad-the-drc-and-angolas-response-are-no-better-report-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-261083</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>An environmental ‘catastrophe’ in Southern Africa lingers with few answers</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/an-environmental-catastrophe-in-southern-africa-lingers-with-few-answers/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/an-environmental-catastrophe-in-southern-africa-lingers-with-few-answers/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Sep 2021 15:53:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashoka Mukpo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Ashoka]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/09/16153530/Screen-Shot-2021-09-16-at-5.27.36-PM-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=247221</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Central Africa, and Democratic Republic Of Congo]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Crime, Degraded Lands, Environment, Freshwater, Governance, Human Rights, Law Enforcement, Mining, Pollution, Rainforests, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[What happens when an environmental catastrophe takes place in an isolated area at the periphery of the world’s attention? The last six weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola suggest the answer is: not very much. In early August, reports began to surface that the waters of the Tshikapa and Kasai rivers had [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[What happens when an environmental catastrophe takes place in an isolated area at the periphery of the world’s attention? The last six weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola suggest the answer is: not very much. In early August, reports began to surface that the waters of the Tshikapa and Kasai rivers had turned a brownish-red. Dead fish were floating to the surface and washing up on riverbanks. Thousands of people fell ill with bouts of diarrhea after drinking the water, and local officials reported that hippos and other large animals were turning up dead. It was, in the words of researchers from the University of Kinshasa, an “unprecedented environmental and human disaster.” The university&#8217;s Congo Basin Water Resources Research Center (CRREBaC) said the pollution was likely caused by discharge from industrial diamond mines in Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul provinces in northern Angola, where provincial authorities reported similar signs of a spill, including mass fish deaths and discolored water. In a press conference on Sept. 2, the DRC’s minister of environment and sustainable development, Eve Bazaiba, said that at least 12 people had died and thousands more had been sickened. More than six weeks later, there are still few definitive answers for what caused the pollution, who is responsible, and what the long-term impacts for communities and ecosystems affected by it will be. Raphaël Tshimanga, a scientist with CRREBaC, says he’s baffled by the lack of international attention and slow regional response so far. “It’s actually a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/an-environmental-catastrophe-in-southern-africa-lingers-with-few-answers/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/an-environmental-catastrophe-in-southern-africa-lingers-with-few-answers/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-247221</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Toxic spill at Angola diamond mine pollutes Congo River tributary in DRC</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/toxic-spill-at-angola-diamond-mine-pollutes-congo-river-tributary-in-drc/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/toxic-spill-at-angola-diamond-mine-pollutes-congo-river-tributary-in-drc/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Sep 2021 15:04:26 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sylvain-Gauthier Kabemba]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/09/01145730/Pirogues_KasaiRiverDRC_TereseHart_BY-NC-SA-2.0-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=246638</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Central Africa, Democratic Republic Of Congo, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Degraded Lands, Environment, Governance, Law Enforcement, Mining, Pollution, Rainforests, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On Aug. 12, authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo&#8217;s Kasaï province noticed the Kasai River had turned red. Witnesses said the bodies of hippos and dead fish were seen floating in the river. “We have taken samples of water, fish, and bones from dead aquatic animals and sent them to the veterinary lab of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On Aug. 12, authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo&#8217;s Kasaï province noticed the Kasai River had turned red. Witnesses said the bodies of hippos and dead fish were seen floating in the river. “We have taken samples of water, fish, and bones from dead aquatic animals and sent them to the veterinary lab of Kinshasa to determine what substance is threatening the ecosystem,” said the governor of Kasaï, Dieudonné Piemé. The pollution was first detected in a tributary of the Kasai River, the Tshikapa, which rises from headwaters in Angola before flowing through the provincial capital that bears its name. The Kasai itself is a tributary of the Congo River. According to Governor Piemé, the pollution originates from a major spill at three mining facilities across the border in Angola: Camaxia-Camagico, Luo et Catoca. “We were concerned to trace the source of this problem and we were able to go back towards the province of Lunda Sul in Angola,” the governor said. “A facility for processing diamonds suffered an operational failure serious enough to spill toxic materials into the river on that side [of the border]. This led me to contact my colleague, Ernest Muangala [governor of Lunda Norte] in Angola, and we discussed the situation with him and discovered that there had been an operational accident at a well-known business, and this led to the pollution of the river and the threat to aquatic animals.” Researchers at the University of Kinshasa&#8217;s Congo Basin Water Resources Research Center (CRREBaC)&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/toxic-spill-at-angola-diamond-mine-pollutes-congo-river-tributary-in-drc/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-246638</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Angola pledges $60m to fund landmine clearance in national parks</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/angola-pledges-60m-to-fund-landmine-clearance-in-national-parks/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/angola-pledges-60m-to-fund-landmine-clearance-in-national-parks/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Jun 2019 03:42:09 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jim Tan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/06/24075520/ClearingLandmines_Angola_HALOTrust-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=219746</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Ivory, Mammals, Migration, Monitoring, Poaching, Research, Solutions, Surveying, Tracking, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
											<grant>
							<![CDATA[2019FB]]>
						</grant>
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Angolan government has pledged $60 million to clear landmines in two national parks that form part of southern Africa’s highly biodiverse Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. The country’s environment minister, Paula Coelho, made the announcement June 17 at a conference in London. The government has contracted the U.K.- and U.S.-based HALO Trust to clear 153 [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Angolan government has pledged $60 million to clear landmines in two national parks that form part of southern Africa’s highly biodiverse Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. The country’s environment minister, Paula Coelho, made the announcement June 17 at a conference in London. The government has contracted the U.K.- and U.S.-based HALO Trust to clear 153 minefields in Luengue-Luiana and Mavinga national parks in the country’s southeastern province of Cuando Cubango. “We are enthusiastic to be part of the initiative of the protection of the elephant and to develop long-term plans for protected areas,” Coelho told the conference. Paula Coelho, Angolan Minister for the Environment, announces a $60 million commitment by the Angolan government to mine clearance at a conference at Chatham House in London. Image courtesy of the HALO Trust Angola’s wildlife was decimated during 41 years of conflict — a 14-year struggle for independence followed by 27 years of civil war — that finally ended in 2002. In southeastern Angola, displaced civilians hunted wildlife to survive, while the UNITA faction, a belligerent in both conflicts, slaughtered elephants and sold the ivory, with the backing of the apartheid government in South Africa, to buy arms. From 2004 to 2005, following the end of the civil war, aerial surveys by Michael Chase, a conservation researcher and founder of the South Africa-based group Elephants Without Borders, found signs that the elephant population in Luiana was increasing; at the same time, tracking of elephants tagged with collars in neighboring Botswana and Namibia showed&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/angola-pledges-60m-to-fund-landmine-clearance-in-national-parks/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-219746</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New species of skink from Angola has waited over 70 years to be described</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/04/new-species-of-skink-from-angola-has-waited-over-70-years-to-be-described/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/04/new-species-of-skink-from-angola-has-waited-over-70-years-to-be-described/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Apr 2019 21:19:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/04/03061438/Laurent-long-tailed-skink-banner-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=217113</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Angola]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Forests, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Herps, Reptiles, Research, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
											<grant>
							<![CDATA[2019FB]]>
						</grant>
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Researchers have finally described a new species of skink from Angola, specimens of which have lurked on museum shelves for more than 70 years. Belgian herpetologist Raymond Laurent first suspected that he was dealing with a new species of skink back in the 1960s based on specimens collected from both Angola and the Democratic Republic of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[Researchers have finally described a new species of skink from Angola, specimens of which have lurked on museum shelves for more than 70 years. Belgian herpetologist Raymond Laurent first suspected that he was dealing with a new species of skink back in the 1960s based on specimens collected from both Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). However, Laurent decided to let his Belgian colleague Gaston de Witte, who had been the first to study the more-numerous DRC specimens in the 1950s, take the lead on describing the skink. As it turns out, neither of them got around to doing it in their lifetime. Now, a team of researchers surveying amphibians and reptiles in Cangandala National Park (CNP) in Angola have formally described the long-tailed skink in a new study published in Zootaxa.  &#8220;It was a lucky find,&#8221; said Mariana P. Marques, a doctoral student at CIBIO (Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources), University of Porto, Portugal, and lead author of the study. &#8220;We were doing some active search for amphibians and reptiles in CNP for our inventory and we saw the specimen basking under a shrub. As soon as we got it, we suspected immediately that was a new species especially due to the well-marked neck and its long tail.&#8221; Laurent&#8217;s long tailed skink. Image by Luis Ceríaco. Marques and her colleagues also used Laurent and de Witte&#8217;s published works to locate some of the older specimens, now placed in the collections of the Dundo Museum in Angola, the Royal&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/04/new-species-of-skink-from-angola-has-waited-over-70-years-to-be-described/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-217113</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>180 years of herps: Q&#038;A with Luis Ceríaco on Angola’s atlas of life</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/180-years-of-herps-qa-with-luis-ceriaco-on-angolas-atlas-of-life/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/180-years-of-herps-qa-with-luis-ceriaco-on-angolas-atlas-of-life/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Mar 2019 09:32:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/03/05060914/Trachylepis-laevis-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=216188</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Frogs, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Herps, Reptiles, Snakes, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[All the amphibian and reptile species that have ever been recorded in Angola have now been included in a comprehensive atlas. Covering published records from 1840 to 2017, the atlas is a compilation of information on nearly 400 species, collected from thousands of scattered sources, including old and rare publications. It includes both the history [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[All the amphibian and reptile species that have ever been recorded in Angola have now been included in a comprehensive atlas. Covering published records from 1840 to 2017, the atlas is a compilation of information on nearly 400 species, collected from thousands of scattered sources, including old and rare publications. It includes both the history of research into Angola’s amphibians and reptiles as well as detailed distribution and conservation concerns for 117 species of frogs and 278 species of reptiles currently recognized in the country. The last such compilation of Angola’s herpetofauna, which covered a small fraction of the species known today, was published in 1895. “This is a pioneering work for sub-Saharan Africa as no other country in the region has published such a database,” said Luis M.P. Ceríaco, head of collections of the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto and herpetology curator at the National Museum of Natural History and Science at the University of Lisbon. Ceríaco, whose team partnered with the Angolan Ministry of Environment’s National Institute for Biodiversity and Conservation Areas to survey the country&#8217;s herpetofauna and compile the atlas, said that by having all available data on amphibians and reptiles in a single document, the atlas could serve as a tool for those interested in biodiversity conservation in the country. It would give Angolan herpetologists a starting point for new research, Ceríaco said, by telling them not only about what’s known, but also what’s not. “At 501 pages long, profusely documented and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/180-years-of-herps-qa-with-luis-ceriaco-on-angolas-atlas-of-life/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-216188</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Tracking elephant movements reveals transboundary wildlife corridors</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/tracking-elephant-movements-reveals-transboundary-wildlife-corridors/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/tracking-elephant-movements-reveals-transboundary-wildlife-corridors/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Sep 2018 12:45:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Calistus Bosaletswe]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sue Palminteri]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/09/06121051/EWB-deployment-of-collars-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=210037</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Angola, Botswana, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Elephants, GPS, Human-wildlife Conflict, Migration, Monitoring, Research, Solutions, Surveying, Technology, Tracking, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Data from satellite tracking tags deployed on elephants in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and along the border of Angola and Zimbabwe have revealed that the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA), formally established in 2011, represents the world’s largest transboundary wildlife corridors. According to the non-profit Elephants Without Borders (EWB) the data from these tags [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Data from satellite tracking tags deployed on elephants in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and along the border of Angola and Zimbabwe have revealed that the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA), formally established in 2011, represents the world’s largest transboundary wildlife corridors. According to the non-profit Elephants Without Borders (EWB) the data from these tags have identified elephant corridors, migration paths and vacant habitats that could reduce negative impacts resulting from an increasing elephant population coming into contact with an increasing human population. It takes a team&#8211;Elephants Without Borders scientists deploy a tracking collar on an elephant. Image courtesy of Elephants Without Borders. EWB program manager Kelly Landen said that the tags, deployed on 120 elephants in the five member states, were crucial in detecting elephants’ locations and identifying the major movement corridors across the five countries. With the discovery of some 90 elephant carcasses inside Botswana, until now considered a relatively safe haven for elephants, areas of intact vegetation that enable elephants to move freely may be more important than ever. “There is now a critical urgency to conserve and safeguard these important identified ecological linkages that wildlife species are using to emigrate between countries,” Landen said. “If the corridors are compromised where elephants and other wildlife do not have safe passage across political boundaries, then one of the natural solutions to manage and maintain the largest population on the continent will be seriously threatened.” Data shows wide-scale elephant movements The tracking tags have allowed EWB to monitor the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/tracking-elephant-movements-reveals-transboundary-wildlife-corridors/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-210037</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Earless African pygmy toad discovered on remote mountain in Angola</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/08/earless-african-pygmy-toad-discovered-on-remote-mountain-in-angola/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/08/earless-african-pygmy-toad-discovered-on-remote-mountain-in-angola/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Aug 2018 05:12:44 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/08/13043357/pygmy-toad-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=209266</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Angola]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amphibians, Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Forests, Frogs, Green, Herps, Research, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 2016, a group of researchers set out to explore Serra da Neve Inselberg, an isolated mountain and Angola’s second-highest peak, in search of frogs and toads. Now, they have described a new and unusual species of African pygmy toad that they chanced upon during their expedition. The new species, formally named Poyntonophrynus pachnodes, or the Serra [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 2016, a group of researchers set out to explore Serra da Neve Inselberg, an isolated mountain and Angola’s second-highest peak, in search of frogs and toads. Now, they have described a new and unusual species of African pygmy toad that they chanced upon during their expedition. The new species, formally named Poyntonophrynus pachnodes, or the Serra da Neve pygmy toad, has a distinct trait that sets it apart from its close relatives: it lacks both external and internal parts of the ear that help frogs hear, researchers report in a new study published in ZooKeys. The study’s lead author, Luis Miguel Pires Ceríaco, a herpetologist at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, U.S., said his team spotted the Serra da Neve pygmy toad on their very first night on the remote mountain. The toads were roaming around their camp, and could be seen amid leaf litter and under rocks. “But we only noticed that the toad was different in the laboratory, under the microscope,” Ceríaco told Mongabay in an email. “Toads, especially small species like this, have a very common toad-like appearance. In the field we are usually very busy collecting, fixing and taking notes, so many times smaller details are overlooked. Even in cases like these, where an entire structure was missing!” While earless toads aren’t rare, this is the first time a Poyntonophrynus species has been reported without ears. “This loss of ear happened several times in frogs, especially in toads of the family Bufonidae, to which the Poyntonophrynus belongs,” Ceríaco said. “Some lineages loose it&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/08/earless-african-pygmy-toad-discovered-on-remote-mountain-in-angola/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-209266</doi>				</item>
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