In Bamukumbit village in northwestern Cameroon, residents have traditionally depended on natural water sources. However, these springs, streams, and rivers have deteriorated and become polluted over time as a result…
GAROUA, Cameroon — Ouro Andre, a village in the Lagdo sub division in the North Region of Cameroon, appears desolate on this rainy morning as farmers set out early to…
As a young student, Aristide Kamla had “big plans” when he traveled to Lake Ossa in Cameroon to conduct his master's degree fieldwork with the little-known African manatee. He was hoping…
Climate change threatens public health by affecting the distribution and spread of food-borne pathogens, according to a recent study by food scientists from Benha University in Egypt published in Nature.…
Following the publication of a Mongabay article, police and authorities have harassed and summoned civil society activists in Cameroon for questioning five times. The Mongabay investigation, which reported and verified…
In 2023, Socfin hired a consultancy to investigate longstanding allegations of human rights violations and environmental damage raised by communities living around the Belgian transnational company’s oil palm and rubber…
There’s a quiet divide among Indigenous and traditional community advocates on the topic of carbon markets. On one hand, some believe carbon credit projects operating on their lands should be…
Since he was old enough to work, Sam Elong has been a fisherman in Kribi, a coastal town of more than 90,000 inhabitants that stretches along the shore of the…
JAKARTA — The tropics continue to lose primary forest at an alarming rate, with an area of tree cover half the size of Panama disappearing in 2023, new data from…
NKOTENG, Cameroon — At the Cameroon Sugar Corporation (Société Sucriere du Cameroun, SOSUCAM), the year 2023 came to a close on a grim note: the death of a man named…
A three-year project supporting alternative livelihoods has shown success in changing the behavior of hunters living on the northern edge of Cameroon’s Dja Faunal Reserve. Participants signed on to reciprocal…
This report was produced with the support of the Rainforest Journalism Fund in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. MOKOLO, Cameroon — The sun is already beating down this morning, a…
Some of Switzerland’s largest pension funds have placed French logistics giant Bolloré SE on a blacklist. The Swiss Association for Responsible Investments (SVVK-ASIR) decided its members should no longer invest…
Emmanuel Eku turned to agroecological techniques to revive the exhausted soil on a plot of land in his hometown in southwestern Cameroon. Over five long years, he worked to restore…
Insect-eating bats that prey on pests in cocoa farms prefer farms that retain large, old-growth trees that shade the plantations. Researchers aiming to find a “sweet spot” in agroforestry systems…
If just two Kordofan giraffes are killed each year, the subspecies could be locally extinct in just 15 years within Cameroon's Bénoué National Park. This is according to a new…
International environmental consultancy the Earthworm Foundation has released findings from field investigations it conducted in April and May this year into grievances against two plantations owned by Belgian multinational the…
Cameroon’s government is again planning to open a portion of Ebo Forest to logging, threatening 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of largely intact forest that is home to several rare and…
Cameroon expands limits on raw log exports YAOUNDE — Cameroon’s Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF) has expanded the list of tree species that can no longer be exported from…
YAOUNDÉ — It’s already been three years since the nearly 4,000 inhabitants of Apouh, a village in eastern Cameroon, have been locked in an intractable conflict with Socapalm, a local…
Uganda announces ban on timber exports KAMPALA — The Ugandan government has banned the export of timber from the East African country. In a directive issued at the end of…
Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.
Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of brief stories from the extractives industry in Africa.
MBONJO, Cameroon — Felled palm trees litter the ground at the entrance to Mbonjo, a town at the heart of Cameroun’s palm oil and rubber-producing region. Mbonjo hosts palm groves…
Cameroon cocoa growers plant fruit trees to slow forest conversion Cocoa farmers in part of Cameroon’s Centre region have begun planting fruit trees alongside their cocoa trees. Agroforestry promoters hope…
‘New world’ in Angola’s relic forests threatened by fires: scientists NAMBA MOUNTAINS, Angola — Remote pockets of species-rich afromontane forest in Angola’s Namba Mountains will be lost if nothing is…
More than 60% of people in Central Africa have no access to electricity. An ambitious proposal aims to change that with a network of pipelines, refineries and gas-fired power plants…
YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – A ruined mining site rests at the heart of the village of Akak I, nestled on the outskirts of Cameroon's capital Yaoundé. This quarry site is no…
A worldwide international collaboration is locating tropical areas with high concentrations of plants not yet identified by science, then working with local communities to conserve those plants and their habitats.
FEBE, Cameroon — In Febe, just six kilometres (about four miles) from Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé, a stone quarry overlooks a mountain slope and the bustling life of the village. Twice…
A resplendent rainbow fish, a frog that looks like chocolate, a Thai tarantula, an anemone that rides on a back of a hermit crab, and the world's largest waterlily are…
TIBATI, Cameroon – In Mbanti-Mbang village, Joseph Adamou and his family are living in fear. Living in the Tibati district located nearly 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) north of Cameroon’s capital…
