The best defense is a good bee-fence
This is a story about elephants, bees, trees, and a drink called Amarula. Amarula Cream is a liqueur distilled from the fermented fruit of the marula tree. The trees’ fruit…
Tanzania News
2015 Equator Prize winners span 19 countries
The United Nations today announced 21 winners of the 2015 Equator Prize, a prestigious award that recognizes community-led environmental initiatives. The winners, selected from a pool of 1,461 nominations across…
Disappearing giraffes
Sadly, it is not a magician’s illusion, but a genuine plummeting in giraffe numbers across Africa. After a two-year effort spearheaded by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, members of the International…
5 African countries agree to combat illegal timber trade
The governments of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Madagascar and Mozambique have agreed to work together to combat the illegal timber trade that is plaguing East and Southern Africa, reports WWF. The…
Bushmeat in Tanzania has an unexpected consumer
Hunting wild animals for food is not an uncommon practice across our world. From remote snow-covered forests in Alaska to the plains and jungles of Africa, animals are trapped so…
Millions of dollars pumped into oil palm development in Tanzania
A partnership with foreign investors aims to scale up the East African nation’s production of palm oil, but details on its implementation and possible consequences remain scarce. Plans for a…
Using DNA evidence to pinpoint poaching zones
Most African elephant ivory is from a very few places A study published last week in Science showed that most of the ivory being trafficked today comes from two areas…
The poachers’ bill: at least 65,000 elephants in Tanzania
An elephant in Ruaha National Park. In just a few years poachers have wiped out most of the elephants in the Ruaha-Rungwa landscape, cutting the population down by 76 percent.…
Photo essay: Polluted, overfished, and choked by weeds, world’s second-largest lake is ‘on its knees’
Fishing gear stands ready next to the day's catch on the shore of Lake Victoria. Photo credit: Isaiah Esipisu. Lake Victoria, Africa's largest fresh water body and the world's second…
Drone Herders: Tanzanian rangers and researchers use UAVs to protect elephants and crops
Desert elephants in Namibia. Photo by: Rhett Butler. HEC, otherwise known as "human elephant conflict," is a centuries-old problem responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of elephants. This…
Scientists identify frog through DNA without leaving forest
Scientists conduct first ever in-field DNA test...and potentially discover new species Ana Rodriguez Prieto conducting a test run of the new technology in Italy. Photo courtesy of MUSE. Yesterday, a…
Keeping up with the climate: efforts to reduce African crop losses face the extra hurdle of climate change
Other Special Reporting Initiatives Articles by Rachel Cernansky Combating food waste in sub-Saharan AfricaNew solutions aim to deliver more grain from farm to table in sub-Saharan AfricaUnique center trains Tanzanian…
Empowering women in order to save the harvest
A farmer threshes beans just harvested from a field outside Babati, Tanzania. Women make up nearly half of the agricultural workforce in sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Rachel Cernansky. On a hot…
The crop-saving champion of Tanzania: Bertha Mjawa
Bertha Mjawa is credited with sparking a movement to reduce food waste in Tanzania. Credit: Rachel Cernansky. Other Special Reporting Initiatives Articles by Rachel Cernansky Combating food waste in sub-Saharan…
Unique center trains Tanzanian farmers to preserve their fruits and veggies
Other Special Reporting Initiatives Articles by Rachel Cernansky Combating food waste in sub-Saharan AfricaNew solutions aim to deliver more grain from farm to table in sub-Saharan Africa Members of a…
New solutions aim to deliver more grain from farm to table in sub-Saharan Africa
Other Special Reporting Initiatives Articles by Rachel Cernansky Combating food waste in sub-Saharan Africa A researcher with the Swiss development organization Helvetas opens a polypropylene bag inside a farmer's storage…
Conservationists announce program to protect East Africa’s largest elephant population
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Tanzanian government have launched an ambitious new initiative to protect East Africa's largest population of elephants (Loxodonta Africana). With funds from USAID, the…
Financial pledges for REDD+ slow to be disbursed, finds report
Map of REDDX countries. Only a small fraction of the $7.3 billion pledged under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) program has actually been disbursed, find a new…
Tribal violence comes naturally to chimpanzees
It all went to hell when Jane Goodall started handing out bananas. Within a few years, the previously peaceful chimpanzees she was studying split into two warring tribes. Gangs of…
One-two punch: farming, global warming destroying unique East African forests
A recent study examines the evolution of viper species in East Africa, highlighting the region's mountaintop forests as among the most biodiverse in the world and calling for their protection.…
Chameleon crisis: extinction threatens 36% of world’s chameleons
World's chameleons facing potential extinction crisis The lesser chameleon (Furcifer minor) is listed as Endangered. This species is only found in Madagascar. Photo by: Christopher V. Anderson. Chameleons are an…
Jane Goodall: 5 reasons to have hope for the planet
su Dr. Jane Goodall with Freud, a chimpanzee from Gombe. Photograph © Michael Neugebauer Jane Goodall is not only arguably the most famous conservationist who ever lived, but also the…
Corruption in Tanzania facilitates ivory trade
Elephants in Tanzania. All photos by Rhett A. Butler Corruption in Tanzania is enabling large volumes of illegal elephant ivory to be smuggled out of the country, alleges a new…
Photos: slumbering lions win top photo prize
This photo of slumbering lions has won Michael 'Nick' Nichols the much-coveted Wildlife Photographer of the Year Title. Photo by: Michael 'Nick' Nichols / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014.…
Google’s new Gombe Street View lets users ‘walk’ along chimp trails and into Jane Goodall’s house
New maps allow public exploration of the area Goodall has used for research for nearly fifty years Google Maps is now available for Tanzanian forest paths. Users can walk virtually…
Norway puts $1.6B into rainforest conservation
Tropical rainforest. Photos by Rhett Butler. Since 2008 Norway has been the single largest foreign donor to tropical forest conservation, putting more than 10 billion Norwegian Krone, or $1.6 billion,…
U.S should sanction Mozambique for its role in elephant, rhino poaching, urges NGOs
Two prominent NGOs—the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and the International Rhino Foundation (IRF)—are petitioning the U.S government to slap Mozambique with trade sanctions due to the country's role in regional…
A taste for wildlife: what’s driving bushmeat hunting in Tanzania?
New research refutes previous findings Barbed-wire snares, spent shotgun shells, the lingering smell of gunpowder, and strips of curing meat: glimpses from a bushmeat hunt. Bushmeat hunting is the illegal…
Regional court kills controversial Serengeti Highway
Lionness with kill in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The Serengeti ecosystem got a major reprieve last week when the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) ruled against a…
Next big idea in forest conservation? Making community protection economically viable
Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q & A with Dr. Neil David Burgess Rural scene in Tanzania. Photo by: Nika Levikov. After years of discovering new species and setting up…
U.N.: We can save world’s forests at a fraction of cost of fossil fuels subsidies
Cumulative deforestation and population growth. Courtesy of UNREDD Investing $30 billion a year in forest conservation — less than seven percent of the $480 billion spent annually on fossil fuels…
Birds of the Serengeti – book review
Birds of the Serengeti: And Ngorongoro Conservation Area by Adam Scott Kennedy may be the best birding book available covering the general safari region for northwestern Tanzania and southern Kenya.…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Narco airstrips beset Indigenous communities in Peruvian Amazon
- 15 illegal narco-trafficking airstrips found near Peru Indigenous communities
- Satellite data show bursts of deforestation continue in Indonesian national park
- Fires rip through Indigenous territories in Brazilian Amazon
Oceans
- Samoa’s new marine spatial plan protects 30% of the country’s ocean
- Tuna fishing devices drift through a third of oceans, harming corals, coasts: Study
- Indigenous Bajo suffer child deaths & toxic sludge amid green energy push
- Southeast Asia’s fisheries thrive despite decades of overfishing warnings: Study
Amazon Conservation
- ‘World’s largest’ carbon credit deal in the Amazon faces bumpy road ahead
- New conservation model calls for protecting Amazon for its archaeological riches
- Brazil dredges Amazon rivers to ease drought isolation, raising environmental concerns
- ‘We need white men on our side to save the Amazon from destruction,’ 92-year-old Indigenous Chief Raoni says
Land rights and extractives
- Indigenous Bajo suffer child deaths & toxic sludge amid green energy push
- ‘Colombia’s Amazon peoples provide solutions’: Interview with José Homero Mutumbajoy
- Should mining companies consider no-go zones where isolated Indigenous peoples live? (Commentary)
- Brazil sets a date to remove illegal miners from Munduruku land, more details await
Endangered Environmentalists
- Environmental & rights activists flee and hide as M23 captures DRC’s cities
- Environmental journalist in Cambodia shot and killed by suspected logger
- Vietnam sentences yet another energy expert over renewables research
- Mother Nature Cambodia activists sentenced to prison — again
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
Conservation Effectiveness
- How effective is the EU’s marquee policy to reduce the illegal timber trade?
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
- Failure in conservation projects: Everyone experiences it, few record it
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- An ‘ocean grab’ for a property megaproject leaves Jakarta fishers grounded
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
