Thousands of tons of illegal timber in Madagascar readied for export

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comMarch 13, 2010 As the President of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, argues in Paris that more funding is needed to stop deforestation and mitigate climate change, a shipment of illegal rosewood is being readied for export in Madagascar by a French company with the tacit approval of the French government. The shipment of […]

Drought, agriculture, and pollution are rapidly destroying Kenya's Lake Naivasha

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comMarch 10, 2010 Heavily polluted and shrinking, Lake Naivasha is in dire trouble. Environmentalists say the cause is clear: flower farms. Some 60 flower farms line the entire lakeside, growing cut flowers for export largely to the EU. While the flowers industry is Kenya’s largest horticultural export (405.5 million last year) it […]

Madagascar traders ready $50m shipment of illegally logged rainforest timber

www.wildmadagascar.orgMarch 02, 2010 Traders in Vohemar, a port in northeastern Madagascar, are preparing to ship $54 million worth of timber illegally logged from the Indian Ocean island nation’s rainforest parks, report local sources. Some 270 containers are being loaded with valuable hardwoods cut during a logging frenzy that ensued following a military coup nearly a […]

Thai customs seizes two tonnes of elephant tusks

February 26, 2010 – 10:30AM Thailand has seized two tonnes of elephant tusks from Africa hidden in pallets labelled as mobile phone parts in the country’s largest ivory seizure. Thai customs officials valued Wednesday night’s haul at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport at 120 million baht ($4 million). It is a further sign that Thailand is emerging […]

South Africa heatwave kills more than 2,000 ostriches — temperatures soar to over 50°C

By Denene Erasmus, 25 Feb 2010 More than 2 000 ostriches have died in the Klein Karoo, as temperatures soared to more than 50°C in February. This follows the announcement that ostrich farmers in the drought-stricken southern Cape would not be benefiting from the R26,9 million in drought relief made available by the National Treasury for embattled […]

Free trade, loss of support systems cripple food production in Africa

ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2010) — Despite good intentions, the push to privatize government functions and insistence upon “free trade” that is too often unfair has caused declining food production, increased poverty and a hunger crisis for millions of people in many African nations, researchers conclude in a new study. Market reforms that began in the […]

Zimbabwe security forces poached 200 endangered rhinos in two years

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comFebruary 14, 2010 Last week the secretary of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Willem Wijnstekers, announced that security forces in Zimbabwe had poached approximately 200 rhinos in a two year period. He did not say how many elephants were poached by security forces. The revelation means that […]

Kenya rounds up prey for starving lions

By Staff Writers Soysambu Conservancy, Kenya (AFP) Feb 10, 2010 Kenyan game rangers on Wednesday began rounding up thousands of zebras to be moved to a reserve where starving lions have been attacking livestock. … “Some herders lost as high as 80 percent of their stock due to the drought and the few that were […]

Phase III of Mau Forest eviction begins

NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 4 – The government announced on Thursday that it was embarking on phase III of the Mau Forest reclamation exercise. In a statement, the head of the Interim Coordinating Secretariat Hassan Noor Hassan said the next phase will entail the recovery of titled forestland in Maasai Mau trust land forest. The Maasai […]

Graph of the Day: Mediterranean Sea Surface Temperature, 1990-2008

Global climatic changes may affect Mediterranean water by increasing sea level and changing the distribution of surface and deep water salinity and temperature. Rising sea level would destroy parts of protective sand belt along Mediterranean coast especially of the Egyptian delta coast which have elevations less than two meters above sea level. In addition to […]

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