The southern fringes of the Sahara are dynamic. As rainfall varies, land patches on the edge chop and change between green and arid brown. Human activities, like overgrazing, deforestation or…
A multidisciplinary team of researchers comparing bone samples from ancient turtles with skin samples from modern-day green turtles have been able to trace the “food footprints” of this endangered species.…
Cameroon’s government is again planning to open a portion of Ebo Forest to logging, threatening 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of largely intact forest that is home to several rare and…
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…
BEN GUERIR, Morocco — Moussa Bouray sifts through hundreds of soil samples on the shelves of his lab that that will undergo analysis for nutrients: nitrogen, potassium, and especially phosphorus.…
Nigeria is one of the top biodiversity hotspots in the world. However, over the past few decades, this plethora of biodiversity has come under significant threat amid a rapidly growing…
The Rainforest Foundation UK claims that all the leading carbon credit verification schemes have allowed millions of credits to enter the voluntary carbon market which do not accurately represent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Efforts to green the planet are in full swing, promising everything from mitigating climate change to stalling land degradation. But how well do these actually work? Often, they sprout up…
Rangelands cover more than 40% of the African continent and about half of Namibia. Large portions of Namibia’s rangelands are communal, serving as shared pastures for livestock and wildlife. These…
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) produces around 70% of the global supply of cobalt and it is also Africa’s leading producer of copper. Despite the billions of dollars in…
TotalEnergies’ East African pipeline a ‘disaster’ for local communities The oil pipeline being built by French oil major TotalEnergies from Uganda’s Alberrtine Rift to the port of Tanga in Tanzania…
Cameroon expands limits on raw log exports YAOUNDE — Cameroon’s Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF) has expanded the list of tree species that can no longer be exported from…
A four-day strike by nearly 2,000 Senegalese and Ivory Coast fishers who work on vessels owned by European companies operating in West African waters pulled back the cover on unfair…
DISANGA, Tanzania — Michele Menegon creeps stealthily through short grass before pouncing. Gently, the scientist holds up his prize: an unnamed species of forest agama. He shows the reptile to…
Tanzanian herpetologist John Lyakurwa was born and raised in a village at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro. The chameleons he and his family encountered on their coffee farm sparked his…
YAOUNDÉ — It’s already been three years since the nearly 4,000 inhabitants of Apouh, a village in eastern Cameroon, have been locked in an intractable conflict with Socapalm, a local…
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…
Uganda announces ban on timber exports KAMPALA — The Ugandan government has banned the export of timber from the East African country. In a directive issued at the end of…
Formed in 1938 on a swath of primary forest nearly four times the size of Paris, Nigeria’s Akure-Ofosu Forest Reserve is home to a diverse array of wildlife. These include…
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — Ankarafantsika, a primary forest in Madagascar’s northwest Boeny region, is the site of a vicious cycle where declining livelihoods and its environmental impact aggravate one another. Rice paddies,…
CAPE TOWN — Evidence of mice attacking albatross chicks on Marion Island, midway between South Africa and Antarctica, makes for grim viewing. One video, captured at a colony of endangered…
In January 2003, when Wildlife Conservation Society researchers working in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands heard from local hunters that there was a monkey called the kipunji living on the slopes of…
GUASSA COMMUNITY CONSERVATION AREA, Ethiopia — On an early misty morning in July, Worku Mekonen, 39, one of the scouts at the Guassa Community Conservation Area in Ethiopia’s central highlands,…
MORONDAVA, Madagascar — As the director of Kirindy Mite National Park and Andranomena Special Reserve near Madagascar’s southwestern coast, Diamondra Andriambololona oversees the protection of nearly 162,770 hectares (402,213 acres)…
Anger over latest oil spill as Shell pipeline contaminates river and farms in Nigeria Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) says an oil spill from Shell’s Trans…
On this episode of the Mongabay Explores podcast, Terese Hart, a researcher with the ICCN (the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature); Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, a wildlife veterinarian and founder…
JAKARTA — The tropics lost 10% more primary rainforest in 2022 than in 2021, as forest loss in deforestation hotspots like Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continued…
Over the past decade, communities affected by transnational palm oil and rubber company Socfin’s plantations have raised complaints with local authorities and in international media. Socfin recently initiated an investigation…
Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.
Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of brief stories from the extractives industry in Africa.
