Oluwa Forest Reserve, located in southwestern Nigeria, contains some of the last large swaths of old growth — also called “primary” — forest in the region. These forests are home…
In a historic 2022 ruling, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights found that the forced eviction of the Indigenous Batwa community from the Kahuzi-Biega National Park was a…
Carbon markets are among the proposed solutions for financing the protection of forests that sequester carbon and hold biodiversity. In the Democratic Republic of Congo alone, carbon credit projects cover…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Our investigation begins at the Trinité Medical Center, less than 20 kilometers, or 12 miles, from the city of Kolwezi, in the south of…
When Desmond Alugnoa and Jacob Attakpah stepped onto a celebrity-studded green carpet at the Earthshot Prize awards in Cape Town last week, they had a good feeling. “Not if we…
BAKU, Azerbaijan — A top African policymaker at COP29, the ongoing global climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan has called for a better evaluation of Africa's vast natural capital to reflect…
This is Part 2 of a two-part series on Kenya’s Eldoret-Iten Water Fund. Part 1 is available here. Two years into the program, Kenya’s Eldoret-Iten Water Fund (EIWF) has seen…
This is Part 1 of a two-part series on Kenya’s Eldoret-Iten Water Fund. Part 2 is available here. When farmers in the upstream Moiben catchment of Kenya’s Cherangany Hills Water…
Cattle and conservation don’t typically mix. For centuries, East African pastoralists like the Maasai trudged across the region’s savannas with their herds, passing by elephants and lions in their search…
It is always puzzling to witness the immense hype surrounding COPs (conferences of the parties to international conventions or treaties). Back in 2009, Barack Obama had just been elected U.S.…
Bonobos, human’s closest relatives, are classified as an endangered species. Groundbreaking research suggests their vulnerability might be even more severe than previously thought. In a first-of-its-kind study published in Current…
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Standing at an altitude of 1,945 meters (6,381 feet), Mount Bintumani is the highest peak of the Loma Mountains, which is the highest mountain range in Sierra…
CHIKOMBE BEACH, Malawi — Dressed in a red T-shirt, a yellow-and-blue wrapper tied from the chest, and flip-flops, Zainab Kassim looks like any of the ordinary people gathered at Chikombe…
Smallholder farmers’ views on a proposed delay to a key EU forest conservation law remain mixed as the union’s Parliament is set to vote on a decision Nov. 13 and…
At the turn of this century, seeing a wild jaguar was exceptionally difficult. People driving through the Jaguar Ecological Reserve in the Pantanal in Brazil would very occasionally get a…
MPONGWE, Zambia – The Chimfuneme swamp forest in central Zambia’s Copperbelt province got its name — which means “hiding place” in the local language, Lamba — long ago when strife…
The village of Terrat, a settlement of around 14,000 people in the semiarid grassland and acacia forests of the Maasai Steppe, is one of many across northern Tanzania that has…
Some 200,000 people work in artisanal copper and cobalt mining the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Katanga region. Most of them scrape a livelihood from the soil with manual tools, often…
NAIROBI — The water supply for Nairobi’s five million people — and four million others besides — depends on the Tana river, which flows for 1,000 km from the Aberdare…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — An environmental activist in the Democratic Republic of Congo faces five years in prison over allegations that he threatened a logger allegedly engaged in…
Populations of the black-footed cat, a little-known feline in Southern Africa, have been declining for the last half a million years and exhibit very high degrees of inbreeding. This could…
There’s a theory about what happens when a big cat sets up shop in a forest, and it’s at the center of one of the biggest fights in ecology today.…
In northern Ghana, communities are facing food insecurity and declining livelihoods due to erratic weather, degraded soils and loss of forests. Among those working on ways to unpick this complicated…
It was mid-2008. Mwezi “Badru” Mugerwa was almost done with his bachelor's degree in forestry, an academic field that had trained him to view forests as a resource for extraction.…
In the border region between Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso lies a network of protected areas that form one of the largest intact wildernesses in West Africa. The W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP)…
HARARE — By 6 a.m. on Sunday, the line at a water well in Harare’s Budiriro suburb is already long. It snakes all the way into a nearby street, and…
With recent conservation efforts and the involvement of Indigenous peoples and local communities in managing protected areas, forest elephant populations are on the verge of stabilizing,in at least one national…
The announcement of tin and coltan deposits potentially worth tens of billions of dollars “discovered” beneath a forest reserve has taken Burundi by storm, raising questions about its veracity and…
Across West and Central Africa’s tropical agricultural belt — and one of the world’s greatest biodiversity hotspots — cacao farming has taken off as demand for chocolate rises in the…
JIGJIGA, ETHIOPIA — Ahmed Mohammed rises before dawn in Jigjiga, the bustling capital of Ethiopia’s Somali region. The 38-year-old’s new routine contrasts starkly with the pastoralist life he once knew.…
BRAZZAVILLE — Conservation authorities in the Republic of Congo have launched a plan to invest in the protection of “high-integrity forests” in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, treating these ecosystems as an…
CAPE TOWN — The sharp pop of an air gun echoes through the forested flanks of Constantia as volunteers herd a raiding troop of baboons away from the affluent Cape…
