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…
In April 2024, above-average rainfall caused Kenya’s Ewaso Nyiro River to burst its banks, flooding the area and wreaking havoc for residents, including more than two dozen rescued chimpanzees at…
As millions of farmers suffer each year from crop and livestock deaths due to pests and diseases, some growers in Africa are turning to a host of advanced technologies, artificial…
When the dawn breaks over Kisokon village in Kenya’s Narok county, Maasai herders leave their bomas, tend to their cattle and follow them around as they graze in nearby pastures.…
Health experts are particularly concerned about the role of climate change in the rise of vector-borne diseases in Africa’s low- and middle-income countries, which already face numerous health and socioeconomic…
WESTERN PROVINCE, Kenya — In the 44 years Naomi Rita Sitati has lived in Bukirimo village in western Kenya, she has known only one system of farming, which her community…
Twenty-one critically endangered black rhinos have been safely delivered to Loisaba Conservancy in northern Kenya from other parts of the country, part of a wider mission to secure the long-term…
As the sun rises over the wetlands on the shores of Lake Victoria, papyrus harvesters set out into the swamps to harvest stalks of papyrus. At the docks, fishermen returning…
MUNJE, Kenya — From the middle of 2023, a favored octopus fishing ground just offshore from the village of Munje was strangely empty. Members of the village’s beach management unit…
As 2023 draws to a close, so, too, does the first full year of Mongabay’s Conservation Reporting Fellowships. Launched at a time of unprecedented planetary upheaval, the program aims to…
The remarkable partnership between East Africa’s whistling thorn trees and their resident ants is well known, but now a new study brings to light the trees’ relationship with birds. Acacia…
SASIMWANI, Kenya — On a cold November afternoon, Esther Norparua and two of her daughters sat on the ground outside her homestead facing the forest. Dark clouds gathered, but the…
Eight years ago, a research team from the National Museums of Kenya stumbled upon an unfamiliar frog on the eastern flanks of Mount Kenya. The small green toad has now…
When world leaders and climate activists meet in Dubai for the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), for the first time, African representatives will bring to the negotiation table…
'Wabi-sabi' is a world view about finding beauty in nature’s imperfections. It perfectly describes pastoralism in northern Kenya – where nomadic livestock herders scrape out a living by moving their…
On Nov. 2, the Kenyan government began demolishing houses and destroying property belonging to Indigenous Ogiek living in the Mau Forest. The Ogiek had won a landmark case in 2017…
New satellite data analysis reveals that Mau Forest in Kenya, the largest montane forest in East Africa, is continuing to lose tree cover, likely due to illegal logging and agricultural…
ENONKISHU, Kenya — Bernard Leshinga, a Maasai pastoralist from southern Kenya, likes an easy day running his herding business. But until recently, Leshinga hadn’t figured out how to help his…
Fire, illegal logging and invasive species have claimed 20% of the forests on the southwestern slopes of Mount Kenya in the last 20 years. The 700 members of the Chehe…
On a fateful day in 2019 that is etched into the memories of local residents, the tranquility along Kenya’s Lake Victoria shores was shattered by an overwhelming surge of water.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
EBURU, Kenya — The twin peaks of Mount Eburu are draped with 87 square kilometers, about 34 square miles, of montane forest. They’re home to more than 40 species of…
LIMURU, Kenya — Kiambu County in Kenya is facing a major water scarcity crisis that is threatening not only people’s livelihoods but also biodiversity. Rivers and wetlands that were once…
KISUMU, Kenya — It is a little past 5 p.m. at the lakeside city of Kisumu, in the western part of Kenya. An hour later, the sun sets over the…
Carbon offset certifier Verra has suspended issuance of credits from an award-winning project in Kenya, Mongabay has learned, after serious questions were raised about its validation and methodology. Indigenous rights…
Sudan, a 45-year-old rhino believed to be the world’s last surviving male northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), died five years ago at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya on…
KISUMU, Kenya — At Dunga Beach on the shores of Lake Victoria, numerous varieties of fish, such as tilapia, Nile perch and mudfish, are processed for consumption and distribution. Every…
