africa

Ten years ago, says Mike Chase, the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area was one fluid contiguous elephant habitat. “An elephant could be in Botswana in the morning, midday in Zimbabwe and in the evening cross over into Zambia or Namibia,” Chase, founder of the conservation NGO Elephants Without Borders, tells Mongabay. “It appears that that […]

CHONGWE, Zambia—Benson Chipungu sits in a leather armchair and reaches for the remote to switch off the news. Pieces of fabric hang over the windows, darkening the room against the heat. A gas-powered hand-plough is parked in the corner. On the floors behind his chair, dozens of ears of corn are spread out, a display […]

Africa’s great apes—from gorillas to chimpanzees and bonobos—are under far greater threat than scientists previously realized, a new study suggests.  While primatologists and conservationists have long tracked great ape populations and the human activities that negatively impact them—from poaching to expanding agriculture and oil drilling—there has historically been a dearth of information on the location […]

MASVINGO, Zimbabwe — At the end of November last year, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Sinomine Resource Group chair Wang Pingwei walked into a lithium processing plant, construction hats firmly on. With a crowd of policymakers, company workers and press looking on, they hailed the mining group’s $300 million investment into processing plants. The facilities […]

Researchers recently reported finding three critically endangered vulture species nesting in Mole National Park, Ghana’s largest protected area. It’s the first scientific observation of hooded vultures (Necrosyrtes monachus) nesting in the park, and the first report of white-backed vultures (Gyps africanus) and white-headed vultures (Trigonoceps occipitalis) nesting anywhere in the country. The findings are published […]

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 diligently kept watch to make sure no one fished that section of reef. At the end of October, Munje’s BMU took to the water to […]

Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains, home to nearly 5,000 different plant species and dozens of amphibians unique to each isolated massif, provide the world with ecosystem services worth more than $8 billion, a group of international scientists says. But the challenge lies in translating more of the value of intact forest landscape there into benefits for […]

In 2017, catastrophic flooding in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, left at least 1,000 people dead and many more homeless. In a matter of minutes, mudslides wiped out homes and destroyed lives. Now, new research links the emergence of such deluges to disappearing green cover in southern West Africa. Compared to 30 years ago, storms are […]

POILÃO ISLAND, Guinea-Bissau — Castro Barbosa’s eyes still light up when he recalls the first time he saw a sea turtle, in 1993. He was on a visit to Guinea-Bissau’s Bijagós archipelago; the turtles made such a strong impression on him that he has devoted his career since then to their protection. “They were so […]