africa

Top European tire makers, including France’s Michelin and Germany’s Continental AG, are sourcing rubber from agribusinesses implicated in deforestation and undermining land rights in western and central Africa, a report by the non-profit Global Witness found. Rubber is used to manufacture everything from shoes to condoms, but three-quarters of the world’s natural rubber ends up […]

BLANTYRE, MALAWI — Despite ongoing protests from conservationists, the government of Malawi has rolled out construction works for a water project inside Lake Malawi National Park, the world’s first underwater national park and a UNESCO World Heritage site. According to eyewitness accounts in the area, construction vehicles are currently blasting rocks, bulldozing boulders and uprooting […]

In 2005, a chimpanzee named Tico arrived at a rescue center in Spain. The details of his early life were vague: he’d been found roaming in the mountains before being moved to a zoo that eventually closed. “[But] we knew that he had arrived illegally from an African country,” writes the center, Fundacion Mona. Through […]

If locusts return by the millions this September, as forecasted, South African farmers hope to follow their movements via a state-of-the-art tracking system, allowing for targeted elimination with pesticides.

MINAWAO, Cameroon — The refugee camp comes to life soon after dawn, some residents shouldering tools and exchanging greetings as they head out to the small farms they’ve established on the outskirts, others opening stalls selling breakfast, an aroma of yeast and sugar rising as the day’s first “puff-puff,” a yeasted fritter, is scooped out […]

The screechy, chirruping notes of Lilian’s lovebirds are the dominant music in the air on a sunny June afternoon in an expanse of mopane forest deep in Malawi’s Liwonde National Park. These gregarious little parrots are found in mature mopane forests throughout the Zambezi River Basin. Conservationists concerned about widespread and ongoing degradation of their […]

With its bright green plumage and range of vocalizations, the rose-ringed parakeet is one of the most sought-after birds in the pet trade. To supply ongoing demand for these birds, traders capture them from their native ranges in parts of Africa and Asia, then sell them to buyers across the world. The rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula […]

“How do we tell the stories of people that history forgets and the present avoids?” journalist-turned-author Jori Lewis asks in the preface to her debut book, Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History. Lewis’s account of Senegal’s peanut trade in the second half of the 19th century is […]

Salatou Sambou, a fisherman and father of five, has been involved in the Kawawana ICCA (Indigenous and Community Conserved Area) in Senegal since 2008. One of the first members of the ICCA consortium, he is now their regional coordinator for marine and coastal ecosystems in West Africa. Thanks to the efforts of local fishermen and […]

You’ve heard of smartphones, smart cars, smart cities, even smart refrigerators, but have you heard of Smart Parks? Smart Parks is a Netherlands-based team of technologists dreaming up inventive ways to realize the founders’ vision of bringing the power of modern technology to bear in conservation. “Big tech organizations like Google and Microsoft have big […]