Newly described gecko from Madagascar a master of disguise
The leaf-tailed geckos of the genus Uroplatus aren't easy to find. In the jungles of their native Madagascar, this is certainly true, owing to their remarkable ability to meld into…
Balancing elephant conservation and community needs: Q&A with award-winning ranger Fetiya Ousman
HARAR, Ethiopia — In the hilly terrain of Babile Elephant Sanctuary in Ethiopia, Fetiya Ousman, a female wildlife ranger, is leading her team on a patrol. Dressed in a jungle-green…
Road upgrade through remote Tanzanian park threatens wildlife (commentary)
Katavi National Park is one of the great East African parks. It's great in the sense of being an enormous, 4,471 km2 area of miombo woodland, having a high diversity…
Conservationists work to restore last remnant of a once-great Ugandan forest
Conservationists are working to restore Uganda’s threatened Mabira Central Forest Reserve, a refuge for hundreds of species of birds, mammals and plants in the center of the country. In April,…
Communities not the true threat to Mabira Forest: Q&A with Ugandan conservationist Achilles Byaruhanga
Conservation groups in Uganda are working to protect Mabira Central Forest Reserve, a 30,000-hectare (74,000-acre) forest in the center of the country, close to Lake Victoria. Mabira is a surviving…
‘All will be well’: Q&A with Kenyan fisher turned coral gardener Katana Ngala
KURUWITU, Kenya — Six days a week, Katana Ngala reports to his workplace, a rudimentary open-air workshop by the beach. Neat and well-shaded under huge palm trees, his workshop is…
Can land titles save Madagascar’s embattled biodiversity and people?
AGNARAFALY and MENABE, Madagascar — For Soja and his family, who escaped starvation bred by drought, the December rain hammering their corrugated metal roof should be welcome. But rains are…
Kenyan fishers put new twists on an age-old marine conservation system
KWALE and KILIFI COUNTIES, Kenya — One June afternoon at the Mwanamia fish landing site on Kenya’s north coast, Garama Karisa was busy mending his gear for an afternoon fishing…
Madagascar signs new ‘sustainable’ tuna deal with the EU
Foreign tuna fishing companies, mostly from Asia, have been exploiting Madagascar’s waters since the 1950s. The bloc that is now the European Union joined the hunt in 1986 and didn’t…
Forests & finance: Fears for forests in Angola, flashes of hope from Kenya & Ghana
Ghanaian researchers diligently working to save two endangered tree species Ghanaian scientists are cultivating seedlings of two critically endangered tree species while searching forests across the country for surviving Talbotiella…
Element Africa: A ‘disaster’ pipeline, an oil-field spill, and a mining pit tragedy
TotalEnergies’ East African pipeline a ‘disaster’ for local communities The oil pipeline being built by French oil major TotalEnergies from Uganda’s Alberrtine Rift to the port of Tanga in Tanzania…
The value of mountains: Q&A with Tanzanian herpetologist John Lyakurwa
Tanzanian herpetologist John Lyakurwa was born and raised in a village at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro. The chameleons he and his family encountered on their coffee farm sparked his…
Sheep offer a livelihood for Kenyan farmers, and a lifeline for a rare bird
KINANGOP, Kenya — From his home on the Kinangop plateau, overlooking the Aberdare mountain range, James Gichia can see thin fingers of smoke rising from scattered settlements, farmers at work…
Villagers turn to charcoal made from bamboo to save a protected forest in Madagascar
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — Ankarafantsika, a primary forest in Madagascar’s northwest Boeny region, is the site of a vicious cycle where declining livelihoods and its environmental impact aggravate one another. Rice paddies,…
Meet the kipunji: A rare primate success story in Tanzania
In January 2003, when Wildlife Conservation Society researchers working in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands heard from local hunters that there was a monkey called the kipunji living on the slopes of…
Tested by COVID and war, an Indigenous conservation system in Ethiopia prevails
GUASSA COMMUNITY CONSERVATION AREA, Ethiopia — On an early misty morning in July, Worku Mekonen, 39, one of the scouts at the Guassa Community Conservation Area in Ethiopia’s central highlands,…
Fire imperils Madagascar’s baobabs: Q&A with park director Diamondra Andriambololona
MORONDAVA, Madagascar — As the director of Kirindy Mite National Park and Andranomena Special Reserve near Madagascar’s southwestern coast, Diamondra Andriambololona oversees the protection of nearly 162,770 hectares (402,213 acres)…
Forests & finance: communities turn to tree-planting, zero-logging, and mushrooms to protect forests
Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.
Ethiopia’s largest community conservation area brings Indigenous communities into the fold
ADDIS ABABA — Indigenous communities in the Lower Omo River Valley of southwestern Ethiopia have taken ownership and management responsibilities of what is now Ethiopia’s largest community conservation area, the…
Kenyan baobab trees uprooted for export to Georgia; critics call it ‘biopiracy’
KILIFI, Kenya — Between 2019 and 2022, during the construction of Kenya’s first-ever expressway in the capital, Nairobi, thousands of trees were felled to pave way for the construction. However,…
Africa’s land and forest restoration initiative gathers pace in Malawi
In front of his rural home in the district of Thyolo in southern Malawi, Douglas Tana grows maize on a tenth of a hectare, or a quarter acre. Before 2010,…
Extreme reforestation: Baobab planters confront fires, loggers, cattle and more
BELO-SUR-MER, Madagascar — The situation was dire in Kirindy Mite National Park during a visit in November 2022. The previous year, a huge tract of forest had been ravaged by…
Study shows Kenyan elephant shrew may be adapting to human disturbance, drought
A population of endangered elephant shrews has rebounded in a threatened coastal forest reserve in Kenya, suggesting the rabbit-sized mammals with endearingly long snouts could be adapting to both human…
Dams and plantations upend livelihoods in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo River Valley
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The peoples of the Lower Omo River Valley in southwestern Ethiopia have never had an easy task in ensuring their own survival. Hot and dry, with…
Fish deaths near Rio Tinto mine in Madagascar dredge up community grievances
LAKE AMBAVARANO, Madagascar — On March 5, 2022, following days of cyclone-induced flooding, executives at the Rio Tinto-owned QMM mine in Madagascar shot off an urgent request to the country’s…
Maasai conservationist strives to protect Indigenous rights because ‘land is life’ (commentary)
The idea that ‘land is life’ has been at the core of what I do since I began my journey in grassroots conservation. I was born in the Loliondo district…
Ethiopia used chemicals to kill locusts. Billions of honeybees disappeared
Between 2019 and 2021, swarms of desert locusts̨ swept across the Horn of Africa and East Africa. In response, the worst-affected countries, Kenya and Ethiopia, sprayed millions of hectares of…
Madagascar bush fires prompt exasperated NGO to curtail tree planting
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — After 14 years in Madagascar, it was the last straw for Graine de Vie, a Belgian NGO dedicated to reforestation. In October, 50,000 saplings in the Ambohitantely…
Rio Tinto must repair the damage caused by their Madagascar mine (commentary)
Rio Tinto’s sprawling Qit Minerals Madagascar (QMM) mining operation is situated in one of the poorest regions of the fifth poorest country in the world. It lies in an area…
Madagascar: What happens to villagers when a graphite mine comes knocking?
AMBOHITSY HAUT, Madagascar — Etsizakay, 40, stood amid the rugged knolls of his village, Ambohitsy Haut, and pointed right. “That’s where my brother is buried,” he said. “There ahead are…
