A Tanzanian journalist contributed to this report, but has requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the story. OLOLOSOKWAN, Tanzania — Just days after rangers from Serengeti National Park…
In a landmark ruling in May 2017, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights affirmed the Indigenous Ogiek’s status as ancestral owners of the Mau Forest in Kenya and…
Encompassing some 2,700 square kilometers, Mau Forest is considered the most important water catchment in western Kenya, providing water to millions of people. But recent satellite data reveal that Mau…
JIGJIGA, Ethiopia — In his late 60s, Abdi Ahmed gears up the strength for a new day as a nomad moving around with his cattle and 19 children. The pastoralist…
In July this year, conservationists from North Carolina Zoo in the U.S. and the Grumeti Fund in Tanzania went searching for a white-backed vulture in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park that…
In the heart of southwestern Cameroon, Ebo Forest is under immense threat from logging. This pristine and vibrant biodiverse ecosystem spanning 200,000 hectares (490,000 acres) is considered a critically important…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
RUMPHI, Malawi — In the villages below Nyika Plateau in northern Malawi’s Rumphi district, coffee rules. It’s one of the most common bushes in the region, grown in back and…
How do you secure the future of one of Africa’s most endangered large mammals, a species with only an estimated 3,000 remaining in the wild? You protect its habitat –…
I have spent more than 20 years visiting communities and working with farmers around Uganda and across East and southern Africa. I have come to realize that there are many…
Across Africa, numerous ecosystems are under pressures degrading their ecological, economic and cultural value. The Niger Delta in the continent’s west and Mount Elgon in the east are two examples…
Michael Harvey recalls the moment he first saw a flock of yellow-crested helmetshrikes flitting through a cloud forest in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo: the first confirmed sighting by…
U.S. government agencies responsible for handing out conservation grants overseas still aren’t doing enough to protect human rights, according to an internal review. The review was commissioned by the U.S.…
In 2022, the government of Tanzania began forcibly evicting thousands of Indigenous Maasai from 1,500 square kilometers, nearly 600 square miles, of their ancestral land to make way for elite…
ZOMBA PLATEAU, Malawi — The Zomba Forest Reserve is a tale of two faces. A large part of the northern section of the plateau is stripped to its last undergrowth…
LOLIONDO, Tanzania — Whistleblowers speaking to Mongabay have reported instances of poaching over decades in Tanzania linked to a luxury hunting firm catering to the United Arab Emirates’ elites and…
Ethiopia's Abijata-Shalla Lakes National Park is set in a semiarid landscape of grassy plains, hills scattered with acacia trees, and ravines cut by seasonal streams. Spanning 887 square kilometers (342…
Three years into an ambitious wetland restoration project in East Africa, conservationist Julie Mulonga says she’s learned the value of small steps. The Source to Sea project set out to…
In recent years, there has been a significant trend in young people from around the world joining the fight against environmental threats and climate change. These educated youths have played…
Oil drilling by French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies is disturbing wildlife in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda’s largest and most-visited protected area. This is according to a briefing by…
For more than 15 years, an international team of researchers intermittently followed five groups of eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in the jungles of Uganda and Tanzania. With cameras in…
Conservationists have called for a halt to trophy hunting of elephants from Kenya’s Amboseli National Park that cross over into neighboring Tanzania, following the killing of at least five males…
In July 2023, botanist Andrea Bianchi was driving in the Nguru Mountains of eastern Tanzania when the broad pods on a tree growing in a maize field near the road…
Zimbabwe’s Mbare agricultural market in Harare, the biggest local market in the country’s capital city, opens at 5 a.m. and bustles. Between morning and noon, traders arrive from different parts…
