Environment
RSS FeedEast Africa: Law on trans-boundary ecosystems
2012-02-02, Issue 568
Aiming to enhance the quality of the environment and ensure sustainable utilisation of shared natural resources in the five-nation East African Community (EAC), the East African Legislative Assembly has moved a step closer to enacting a regional law ...
Global: How big agriculture is trying to kill you
2012-02-05, Issue 568
Energy-intensive industrial farming practices that rely on toxic chemicals and genetically engineered crops are not just undermining public health, they’re destroying the planet....
Zimbabwe: Mining activity in and near to Hwange National Park
2012-01-17, Issue 566
Last year, a fly over of Hwange National Park (HNP) revealed increased mining activity in and around the Sinamatella area, reports www.sokwanele.com 'In addition to the mining carried out by Hwange Colliery Company...
Global: Emissions cuts also offer quick health and crop benefits
2012-01-18, Issue 566
Reducing methane and black carbon emissions could quickly tackle climate change while improving food security and people's health, especially in developing countries, a study reports.Scientists identified 14 emission control measures that, when appli...
Kenya: Key lakes succumb to human activities
2012-01-18, Issue 566
Several years ago, Lakes Kamnarok and Ol Bollosat in Kenya were vibrant water bodies that supported and shaped the ecosystems around them. But today they are shells of their former selves, due to heavy siltation caused by human activities. 'Siltation...
Swaziland: Fledgling environmental authority up against big business
2012-01-19, Issue 566
Recently hundreds of dead fish floated to the surface of a stream which was the only water source for a rural community in Swaziland's drought-prone eastern region. A local sugar processing plant admitted to accidentally discharging toxic effluent in...
Africa: Young scientists issue communique on climate change
2012-01-16, Issue 565
A group of young scientists meeting on the sidelines of COP17, held in Durban, South Africa last year, has resolved to mobilise African young scientists and youth within and outside Africa to promote the role of African indigenous knowledge systems in climate change adaptation and mitigation through...
Global: Climate deal leaves questions on green fund and tech transfer
2011-12-14, Issue 563
The UN Climate Change Conference (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa, ended 11 December with an agreement that all major polluting countries would work towards legally binding targets for reducing carbon emissions. But the bitter showdowns and high dram...
West Africa: Research shows Sahel hotspots
2011-12-14, Issue 563
Average temperatures across the Sahel have risen by around one degree Celsius over the past 40 years, according to a study identifying potential climate 'hotspots' in the region. The report, published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), analysed ...
Global: Holding polluters accountable
2011-12-15, Issue 563
The faith community is among key stakeholders calling for the establishment of a permanent International People’s Tribunal on Ecological Debt. Such a tribunal would hold environmental violators accountable for the climate change they are causing in l...
Africa: Climate change blamed for dead trees in Africa
2011-12-19, Issue 563
Trees are dying in the Sahel, a region in Africa south of the Sahara Desert, and human-caused climate change is to blame, according to a new study led by a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. The study was based upon climate change ...
Global: Study finds link between air pollution and increase in DNA damage
2011-12-20, Issue 563
A study in the Czech Republic has found a link between exposure to certain air pollutants and an increase in DNA damage for people exposed to high levels of the pollution. They found that breathing small quantities of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbo...
Kenya: People connected by a warming ocean
2011-12-08, Issue 562
Just 8 kilometres South of the Kenya/Somali coastal border, 60 kilometres parallel to the northern coast of Kenya lies Kiunga Marine National Reserve. It is a marine reserve made up of a chain of about 50 coral islands, lying some 2 kilometres offsho...
Egypt: Industrial intrusions in the Wadi Degla nature protectorate
2011-12-08, Issue 562
At the southeastern edge of Cairo, only 10km from downtown and 15 minutes from Maadi, a lonely desert valley called Wadi Degla spreads some 30km from west to east. Cairo’s most popular urban protectorate was established in 1999 in an effort to tame u...
Global: Anti-coal seminar takes place at COP17
2011-12-08, Issue 562
On 2 December Earth Life Africa held an anti-coal seminar at the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal (Howard campus). The seminar titled 'Anti-Coal Movements in Germany, South Africa and beyond?' highlighted many of the negative con...
South Africa: COP17 succumbs to climate apartheid
2011-12-12, Issue 562
Decisions resulting from the UN COP17 climate summit in Durban constitute a crime against humanity, according to Climate Justice Now! a broad coalition of social movements and civil society. 'Here in South Africa, where the world was inspired by the ...
South Africa: Activists protest at COP17 in Durban
2011-12-12, Issue 562
In solidarity with the millions of people already feeling the impacts of climate change, hundreds of people protested in the halls of the UN Climate Talks last week to demand that nations not sign a 'death sentence' in Durban. The march filled the ha...
Africa: Africa will cook, warn experts
2011-12-12, Issue 562
Two weeks of discussions at the 17th annual Conference of the Parties (COP17), which ran through Friday and Saturday nights, resulted in sleep-deprived negotiators attending numerous closed meetings and missing flights. These groups have been disappointed by the outcomes, and the consequences that will be shouldered by developing nations, especially those in Africa....
Global: Forest-dependent communities lobby for end of REDD+
2011-11-30, Issue 560
Organisations working with indigenous peoples living in forests say the United Nations programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) is just another way for big corporates to reap huge profi...
South Africa: Financing battle emerges at climate change talks
2011-11-30, Issue 560
International climate negotiators were at odds Tuesday 29 November on how to raise billions of dollars to help poor countries cope with global warming. Details of the tussle over the funding emerged as the UN's weather agency reported that 2011 was t...
Global: The people's struggle and the struggle for the environment:
An interview with Fred Magdoff
2011-11-30, Issue 560
Fred Magdoff is professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and adjunct professor of crop and soil science at Cornell University. As climate crisis threatens millions of people around the world, the latest round of clima...
Global: Developing country mitigation greater than developed countries
2011-12-01, Issue 560
The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) has recently issued a report that examines four recent detailed studies of countries’ mitigation pledges under the Cancun Agreements, for the purpose of comparing developed (Annex 1) country pledges to develo...
Africa: Carbon trading in Africa
A critical review
2011-12-04, Issue 560
This critical review of carbon trading in Africa includes analyses of the context and trends in the carbon market in Africa; offset projects in Uganda, Ethiopia and South Africa; and carbon finance and regulation. It shows how carbon trading provides...
Global: Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage
New panacea or a really bad idea?
2011-12-04, Issue 560
BECCS, or biomass with CCS, has recently gained attention in national as well as international high level discussions on climate, as a supposedly viable means to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. But the underlying premises for these claims ...
Global: Financialization, commodification and carbon
2011-12-04, Issue 560
The carbon markets operating today under the aegis of the UN, the EU, and a variety of state and non-state actors are the default international approach to the climate crisis. Reflecting, extending and deepening neoliberalism, these markets grew rapi...
Africa: The trans-African caravan of hope
2011-12-04, Issue 560
Brandishing a plea for developed countries to make good their promises to reduce carbon emissions, 300 farmers, youths and activists took the scenic route to the COP17 conference in Durban, travelling more than 7,000km from Burundi in 17 days, throug...
South Africa: Wanted! A climate deal with meaningful steps
Memorandum from the Rural Women's Assembly to the UNFCCC, the government of the Republic of South Africa and the Governments of Africa
2011-12-04, Issue 560
'We demand that climate change solutions put indigenous knowledge systems at the centre of policies to promote biodiversity, rehabilitate our ecosystems and rebuild the livlihoods destroyed by colonialism, apartheid and economic imperialism. Rural wo...
South Africa: The global day on climate justice in pictures and words
2011-12-05, Issue 560
The blog Climate Connections has a photo gallery of the Global Day of Action Against UN Conference of Polluters (COP) in Durban, while the Durban Climate Justice blog has a commentary fr...
South Africa: The Kyoto protocol is in grave danger
2011-12-05, Issue 560
The opening statements in the Durban climate talks sounded more like conclusions, writes Nnimmo Bassey on the New Internationalist blog. Negotiators will be grappling with two key issues - the first is whether to have a second commitment period of th...
Global: Rich Nations 'Give Up' on New Climate Treaty Until 2020
2011-11-22, Issue 559
Governments of the world's richest countries have given up on forging a new treaty on climate change to take effect this decade, with potentially disastrous consequences for the environment through global warming, reports this article on [url=http://...
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