Africa > Environment

Environment in Africa

  • Anti-poaching drones yielding fruits in Malawi

    MALAWI, 2017/06/20 An anti-poaching drone at Malawi’s Liwonde National Park currently being run by African Parks to combat poaching of elephants and rhinocerous is bearing fruits, the drone team operators Antoinette Dudley and Stephan De Necker have confirmed. Dudley, operator of the Air Shepherd drones, said the drones had been a potentially effective tool to protect elephants and other species that are a pillar of Malawi’s faltering tourism industry.
  • Africa: The World Has Finally Noticed That the Ocean Is a Finite Resource

    AFRICA, 2017/06/09 The United Nations Ocean Conference marks the initial time that oceans have been put at the forefront of world affairs. It straddles the United Nations Oceans Day on 8 June, giving nations and their non-government partners a stage to present their perspectives on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The focus will be on Goal 14 - oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
  • Etihad Cargo and Intradco Global Help bring endangered Rhinos home

    UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, 2017/05/29 The critically endangered black rhino has returned to the wilds of Rwanda with the help of Etihad Cargo and animal transport specialist Intradco World. On behalf of African Parks, a conservation non-profit organization that manages national parks and protected areas on behalf of governments across the continent, Intradco chartered two Etihad Boeing 777 freighters to transport the 19 black rhinos from Johannesburg to the Rwandan capital, Kigali. Upon touching down at Kigali International Airport (KGL), the rhinos were carefully transferred to trucks to continue the final leg of their journey by road, under police escort.
  • Dealing with the ‘loss and damage’ caused by climate change

    WORLD, 2017/05/14 Scaling down our emissions and building resilience against climate change can only take us so far. Some negative impacts and damages are now unavoidable. The inevitable consequences of human-caused climate change have collectively come to be known as “loss and damage”. First emerging decades ago as a relatively obscure plea by small island states, loss and damage has now gained recognition as the third pillar of international climate policy, after mitigation and adaptation. But turning the concept of loss and damage into something more tangible for countries bearing the brunt of extreme weather or rising seas has proved more fractious.
  • To save famous park’s rhino, dehorning being considered

    SOUTH AFRICA, 2017/04/26  IT WOULD have been unthinkable just a few years ago that rhinos would be dehorned for their own protection in a park as large and famous as the HluhluweiMfolozi Park in KwaZuluNatal. The 96 000ha park is the province’s flagship Large Five reserve and is often referred to as the “cradle” of African rhino conservation. This is the park where a tiny remnant people of Africa’s southern white rhino species was rescued from world extinction just over a century ago. From a people of just 50 or so survivors in the 1890s, these animals were guarded carefully by the former Natal Parks Board and multiplied slowly to reach just over 20 000 a decade ago. POACHERS RESORT TO ANYTHING: Rhino horns hidden in the engine compartment of a car by poachers, poaching dropped in the Kruger National Park by almost 20% last year while the killing rate in KZN shot up by 38% in 2016.
  • We must act immediately to save the Great Barrier Reef

    AUSTRALIA, 2017/04/15 And so it begins: the end of days. The Great Barrier Reef is bleaching for the second year in a row and presently, according to the results of helicopter surveys released on Monday, it is the middle part (all 300 miles-plus of it) that is suffering the awful reef stress that comes courtesy of a warming ocean. Coral bleaching is incredibly critical. In particularly warm summers, the complex balance between the symbiotic algae and the coral becomes disrupted. To save themselves, the coral expels the algae in the hope of better times ahead. In this national, the coral becomes whitened. That’s what bleaching is.
  • Kenya: Air Pollution Killing 14,300 Kenyans Annually

    KENYA, 2017/03/12 At least 1.7 million children under the age of five die each year due to unhealthy or polluted environments, a statement has revealed. The World Health Organization (WHO) statement released on Monday revealed that a quarter of all world deaths of children under five are caused by dirty and polluted environments inclunding dirty water and air, second-hand smoke and a lack of adequate hygiene. In Kenya, according to a United Nations statement of 2016 titled "Actions on Air Quality", at least 14,300 Kenyans die each year from health conditions which can be traced back to indoor air pollution with pneumonia cited as one of the biggest killers associated with air pollution. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said that lack of clean air and water can lead to fatal cases of diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia. This as well exposes children to harmful chemicals through food, water, air and products around them.
  • Zimbabwe: The Agony of Villagers Cut Off By Floods

    ZIMBABWE, 2017/03/12 "These bridges were built by Ian Smith's government, I was born in 1978 and this has always been the bridge I've known; presently it's broken. "So from 1978 until presently, this new Zimbabwe, I haven't seen anything new. Nothing." These are the lamenting words from Nkosilathi Khumalo (38), from Sibhula village under Chief Khulumani Mathema in Gwanda District. Sibhula, 41km south westerly of Gwanda town, is surrounded by the Hovi and Maleme rivers, which have their sources somewhere in the Matobo National Park and are tributaries of Tuli River.
  • South Africa: Landmark Court Ruling On Climate Change

    SOUTH AFRICA, 2017/03/12 The Department of Environmental Affairs erred in granting authorisation for the proposed Thabametsi coal-fired power station in Limpopo without initial having established what impact it would have on climate change, the North Gauteng High Court has ruled. The court as well said Environment Minister Edna Molewa, who had recognised this shortcoming, erred by nevertheless upholding her department's decision rather than overturning it next the public had lodged an appeal.
  • Elephant poaching costs African economies $25 million per year in lost tourism revenue

    TANZANIA, 2016/11/03 The current elephant poaching crisis costs African nations around USD $25 million annually in lost tourism revenue, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Communications. Comparing this lost revenue with the cost of halting declines in elephant populations due to poaching, the study determines that investment in elephant conservation is economically favorable across the majority of African elephants' range.