Freetown (AFP) July 4, 2011 – Massive piles of seaweed have washed ashore along Sierra Leone’s coastline, covering the white sand and raising fears for tourism and the fishing industry, officials said Monday. “People should stay away until we determine through lab tests whether the weeds are toxic and harmful to human beings. We are […]
[Sadly, the folks at Serengeti Watch were right: The road will be built anyway. From their Stop the Serengeti Highway Facebook page: “AS PREDICTED OUR WORK IS NOT OVER! ‘Construction of a road across Serengeti will go on as planned but the government says more than 120 kilometres cutting across world famous park will not […]
By Pete Wilton June 28, 2011 Half the elephants from West and Central African savannahs have vanished in the past 40 years, scientists report in PLoS One. A team, including Iain Douglas-Hamilton of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology, estimate that around 7,750 elephants remain in the Sudano-Sahelian zone, which covers 20% of the continent, a […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com30 June 2011 A prolonged drought in East Africa is bringing many of the region’s impoverished to their knees: the World Food Program (WFP) is warning that 10 million people in the region are facing severe shortages. While not dubbed a famine yet, experts say it could become one. Meanwhile, a recent […]
[Update: As usual, optimism is not supported by the evidence: Paved road across Serengeti will go on as planned – World Heritage site to be mined for uranium.] By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News 24 June 2011 Controversial plans to build a tarmac road across the Serengeti National Park have been scrapped after warnings […]
By Matt Walker Editor, BBC Nature 31 May 2011 Populations of wildlife species in the world-renowned Masai Mara reserve in Kenya have crashed in the past three decades, according to research published in the Journal of Zoology. Numbers of impala, warthog, giraffe, topi, and Coke’s hartebeest have declined by over 70%, say scientists. Even fewer […]
By Audree Montpetit25 May 2011 I arrived in Borena Zone, Oromia Region, in the southern part of Ethiopia two days ago. I am here with my CARE colleagues to conduct a deeper assessment on the impact of the current drought on women, men, boys and girls. We have talked to different groups, and even though […]
Contact: info@maplecroft.com or call +44 (0)1225 42000018 May 2011 18/05/2011 The Gulf nations of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are rated as the world’s most water stressed countries, with the least available water per capita, by a new ranking of 186 countries. The Water Stress Index, released by risk analysis and mapping firm Maplecroft, […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com12 May 2011 While record crests of the Mississippi River are creating havoc in the southern US, this is not the only region in the world facing unprecedented flooding. Huge rain events have produced floods in southern Africa as well, impacting Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa. Since last year rainfall has been […]
By MARK KAPCHANGA4 May 2011 The International Monetary Fund is warning that poverty levels will rise in Africa, unless the current spike in food and fuel prices is arrested. In its latest world economic outlook on Africa, the Washington-based institution says the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be probably be delayed as […]
