Insect-eating bats that prey on pests in cocoa farms prefer farms that retain large, old-growth trees that shade the plantations. Researchers aiming to find a “sweet spot” in agroforestry systems…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of brief stories from the extractives industry in Africa.
At the start of the 2000s, the search for a “miracle” biofuel led to a stubby Latin American tree. But jatropha’s boom went bust when high yields and big eco benefits failed to materialize. Now some say it’s set for a return.
One dead, four injured as Ghana gold miner moves to evict artisanal miners BENSO, Ghana — Police killed one person and injured four others while attempting to clear trespassing miners…
Campaigners sue Ghana’s government to block mining of Atewa Forest biodiversity hotspot Twenty NGOs and individuals are taking legal action to prevent the Ghanaian government from mining bauxite in the…
“I come here to find gold. First we cut down the trees, then we burn them. Then we start digging the soil to open the pit,” says a young man…
Zambians launch lead poisoning lawsuit against mining giant Anglo American A group of 140,000 women and children from Zambia’s Kabwe district is seeking to bring a class action lawsuit against…
Logging near Cameroon national park raises red flags over permits YAOUNDE — Agroindustrial company Cameroun Vert S.A., or Camvert, is again clearing forest near Campo Ma'an National Park, raising questions…
Chocolate is one of the world’s greatest little pleasures. But its primary ingredients — cocoa, palm oil and soy — all contribute to global deforestation. The industry is working now to make chocolate more sustainable.
Baby West African slender-snouted crocodiles come into the world doubly watched over. Females of the species, Mecistops cataphractus, guard their nests on the riverbanks in the Tano River Basin until…
ACCRA, Ghana — White waves collide in a crash where the Volta River meets the Atlantic Ocean near Ada Foah. Warm, tropical air hovers over Ghana's coastline – but as…
Over recent years, consumers have become increasingly aware of the bitter-sweet legacy left by the chocolate industry in the countries that supply a majority of the world’s cocoa. While cocoa…
Emmanuel Essien was sure he had evidence of illegal fishing on board an industrial trawler operating in the waters off the coast of Ghana. The 28-year-old fisheries observer had video…
Juneteenth marks the date in 1865 where an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas were freed, marking the official end of slavery in the Confederacy – two years after the…
This year, six environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in a virtual ceremony. Known as the “Green Nobel Prize,” this award is given annually to grassroots environmental…
Using the customizable app ForestLink, traditional forest guardians (people living within and around the forest) can send near-real-time, geo-tagged alerts about illegal logging and mining activities to authorities and other…
Western chimpanzees are the most threatened of the four confirmed chimpanzee subspecies. Conservationists estimate that populations of the western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes versus) declined by 80% between 1990 and 2014.…
When conservationists set up treetop cameras in Côte d’Ivoire’s Tanoé-Ehy forest, they hoped to get video of the elusive Miss Waldron’s red colobus monkey (Piliocolobus waldroni), a critically endangered species…
In a video, a group of young Ghanian men stride out into the bush, carrying long sticks over their shoulders. Dogs trail alongside them. When they come across a burrow,…
Eating chocolate shouldn’t mean fueling environmental and social destruction. But, as a stream of news stories and reports make abundantly clear, too often it does. Cocoa production in Ghana and Ivory Coast – the world’s biggest cocoa producers…
Billions of dollars in loans issued to resource-rich countries could saddle them with insurmountable debt, according to a new report from the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), a nonprofit organization…
ACCRA — “Beginning now, the full-scale exploitation of Ghanaian bauxite resources will commence,” Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said last June. “I am satisfied by what I have been…
2019 closed out a "lost decade" for the world's tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments,…
KUMASI, Ghana — The West African country of Ghana is known for having rich natural resources including vast tracts of rainforest. But its primary forest has all but vanished, with…
Strong environmental regulations might seem like a no-brainer for developing countries trying to avoid environmental ruin and conflict over resources. But absent an understanding of the challenges that local people…
If people knew about pangolins and how special they are, says documentary filmmaker Bruce Young, “they might begin to care enough to help save and conserve them, and put an…
