Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is a sanctuary for half of the world’s remaining population of endangered mountain gorillas, alongside forest elephants and many other species. But two road projects…
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national emergency on April 18 as the death toll from floods in KwaZulu-Natal province climbed over 440, with dozens of people still missing.…
For the past decade, an association of small farmers has been growing vegetables amid a strip of filao trees that grow on the sand dunes along the coastline in the…
MAKOKOU, Gabon — In August 2020, the Massaha community in northeastern Gabon made a formal request to the government to declassify a logging concession allocated to a Chinese company, Transport…
A new investigative report details human rights abuses committed against Indigenous Batwa people between 2019 and 2021 in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park (KBPN) located in eastern Democratic Republic of the…
The export of 22 wild-caught elephants from Namibia to the United Arab Emirates in March has raised concerns over their welfare and stoked criticism of how Namibia manages its wildlife.…
It's that time of year when many researchers are heading out into the field again, and for some it’s the first field season after a long hiatus due to the…
Award-winning National Geographic photographer Ami Vitale recently made a short film called Shaba about a young elephant rescued by the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary, which is owned and operated by an Indigenous…
Early February 1989. A blue helicopter, partly tinted in green and white, emerged from the clouds of Kanyang, in Nigeria's Cross River state. Gabriel Osanja, then 22, stood among the…
Madagascar is the custodian of some of the world’s most valuable contraband: seized rosewood worth millions of dollars on the international market. Since 2013, global trade in Malagasy rosewood has…
In early February, wildlife rangers in the remote northern forests of West Africa’s Republic of Benin became some of the most recent victims of the Sahel’s long-running Islamist insurgency when…
Scholars and political leaders worldwide are fretting over the complex connections between climate and insecurity. Many social scientists theorize that climate disruption is a “conflict multiplier.” To residents of the…
Established in 1936 and situated just 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the sprawling megacity of Lagos, Akure-Ofosu Forest Reserve has long been a sanctuary for Nigeria’s diverse and dwindling wildlife.…
A team of biologists has discovered a nesting stronghold for Africa’s rarest falcon in the granite domes that tower over Mozambique's Niassa Special Reserve. The team surveyed more than 30…
A nearly seven-decade-long experiment in South Africa’s largest national park is yielding surprising results about how fires mold savanna land. The analysis from Kruger National Park, published in the journal…
A critical new donor-funded evaluation of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has confirmed what African civil society and faith leaders have claimed: “AGRA did not meet…
Even in the isolated, scrubby plains of the savanna, spotting the black ear tufts of a caracal prowling nearby remains a rare opportunity. The wild cat, sometimes known as the…
KINANDU, Democratic Republic of the Congo - A small group of residents from Kinandu village, 19 kilometers (11 miles) west of Lubumbashi, head into the miombo wooded savanna, decimated by…
In December, the British government announced a plan to ban the import of hunting trophies into the UK. The proposal has popular support, but there is a vocal contingent that…
BIKITA, Zimbabwe — Nothing seems to happen at the right time for Maria Mazambara, a communal subsistence farmer in Bikita, one of Zimbabwe's southernmost rural districts. “The seed we get…
Lazarus Nwobegai, who holds a government permit to harvest timber around Mount Cameroon National Park, knows perfectly well it's illegal to hunt the chimpanzees and other threatened primates that live…
Uganda’s Kibale National Park is a primate haven, home to 13 primate species, including chimpanzees. And while these great apes and monkey species are frequently ensnared in traps laid out…
“When we caught it, we all just looked at it and said, ‘You look ridiculous. Look how big your nose leaf is,’” Jon Flanders, director of endangered species interventions at…
Traditional fishers scattered in isolated communities along Madagascar’s 4,800-kilometer (3,000-mile) coastline are grappling with falling fish stocks and competition from industrial trawlers, mostly owned by foreigners. As a young woman,…
An international conservation group is pushing forward with ambitious plans for extended elephant corridors in Africa that would allow the animals room to move more freely — not just across…
ACCRA, Ghana — White waves collide in a crash where the Volta River meets the Atlantic Ocean near Ada Foah. Warm, tropical air hovers over Ghana's coastline – but as…
In January 2019, authorities in Uganda intercepted a shipment of nearly 4 tons of elephant ivory and pangolin scales on its way to the capital, Kampala, from the neighboring Democratic…
LAGOS — Nigeria has for years failed to hold wildlife traffickers and poachers accountable for their crimes, despite federal and state laws that criminalize the killing and trading of protected…
Of the nine critical planetary boundaries that humanity is transgressing, climate change is the best known and understood, while atmospheric aerosol pollution may be the least, but aerosols are already having climate impacts and polluting Earth’s skies, killing millions.
For the second time in just over two months, a South African court has acted to stop a seismic survey for oil and gas off the country’s west coast. On…
