New timber ban fails to stop illegal logging in Madagascar

  www.wildmadagascar.orgApril 04, 2010 Rainforest timber continues to be cut illegally from Madagascar’s national parks despite a recently announced moratorium on precious wood exports and logging, reports a source from the Indian Ocean island nation. On March 24, Madagascar’s transitional authority unveiled decree (no. 2010-141) prohibiting all exports of rosewood and precious timber for two […]

Lake Naivasha: Then and Now

In Kenya’s Nakuru Rift Valley, the lakes are drying up: Nakuru, Naivasha, Baringo, Solai, Bogoria, Turkana, and Elementaita are rapidly wasting away, leaving cracked lakebed deserts. In only six years, Lake Naivasha has receded to the point that fishermen have dug long channels in the lakebed to reach the now-distant shore. 2002   2009 Technorati […]

Kenya: A lake lies on its deathbed

By WANJIRU MACHARIAPosted Tuesday, December 8 2009 at 22:00 The short rains that pounded the larger Nakuru District for a few days in August, September and November were greeted with a sigh of relief. For a while, residents and tourists marvelled at the replenished Lake Elementaita that had dried up due to the long drought, […]

Image of the Day: Dandora Garbage Dump, Kenya

A woman sorts through a heap of garbage at the Dandora dumping site among other people, cattle, pigs and storks, in Nairobi on December 10, 2009. The dumping site was declared full and a health hazard for the neighboring population in 2001 but chemical, hospital, industrial, agricultural and domestic waste are still dumped here and […]

Kenya investors to lose Mau Forest land without compensation

By Paul Ilado and Geoffrey Mosoku 29 March 2010 Nairobi — POWERFUL individuals including former President Daniel arap Moi who were allocated huge parcels of land in the Mau Forest will not only lose their land but will also not be compensated. Last year’s fierce struggle within the ODM over whether the Mau evictees should […]

Image of the Day: The Receding Shore of Lake Nakuru

A baby baboon clings to its mother, with the receding shore of Lake Nakuru in Kenya in the background, on October 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Khalil Senosi) Scenes from Kenya Technorati Tags: drought,freshwater depletion,mammal decline,primate decline,Africa,Kenya,agriculture

Image of the Day: Dried Riverbed in Kenya

A young boy from the Turkana tribe stands on a dried up riverbed on November 9, 2009 near Lodwar, Kenya. (Christopher Furlong / Getty Images) Scenes from Kenya Technorati Tags: drought,freshwater depletion,Africa,Kenya,desertification,global warming,climate change

Desert spreading like ‘cancer,’ Egypt conference told

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AFP) – The desert is making a comeback in the Middle East, with fertile lands turning into barren wastes that could further destabilise the region, experts said at a water conference on Thursday. “Desertification spreads like cancer, it can’t be noticed immediately,” said Wadid Erian, a soil expert with the Arab League, at […]

Kenya: Farming a land where ‘normal’ has lost its meaning

By JESSICA LEBER of ClimateWirePublished: March 29, 2010 SAKAI, Kenya — No one complained that the rains were late when they watered the parched hills and muddied the roads here in December. Normally, they would have begun weeks earlier. Villagers were grateful the rain had come at all. “God is great. After these two seasons […]

Earth out of sync: Rising temperatures throwing off seasonal timing

By Janet LarsenMarch 25, 2010 …With global average temperatures up 0.5 degrees Celsius since the 1970s, springtime warming is coming earlier across the earth’s temperate regions.  A number of organisms have responded to the warming temperatures by altering the timing of key life-cycle events. The problem, however, is that not all species are adjusting at […]

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