(file photo) Resilient seeds, ready for purchase at the Dryland Seed Company, Machakos, Kenya, are boosting local yields as much as five fold. (Photo courtesy Tami Hultman/allAfrica)
For a couple that has weathered the dual tests of early retirement and repeated crop failures, it might have seemed an impossible dream to former primary-school teacher Philip Ngolania and his farmer wife that their three quarters of an acre farm could one day yield enough staple food to last an entire season.
But a visit to the local office of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute early this year ushered in a fresh beginning for the 62-year-old father of four grown sons, whose land barely produced enough food for the family's daily meals. More »
Africa: Developing Water-Efficient Maize
Young maize growing on a farm in South Africa. Public-private partnerships provide a useful approach for addressing the complexities of sustainable agricultural development and the global food security challenge. (Photo courtesy Flickr)
Solar Pump Project Aims to Ease Woes
(file photo) The Kenyan government plans to install 2,000 solar powered pumps in arid regions of the country to reduce the water shortages caused by erratic rainfall. (Photo courtesy UN Photo/Fred Noy)
Top Headlines Environment
- Farmers Turn Back to Tradition As Rainfall Changes (AlertNet)
- Cholera Soars, Says UN (RNW Africa)
- Flooding Cuts North-South Highway (AIM)
- Cyclone Funso Weakening (AIM)
- Banks Loan Gabon 13.7 Mn Euros to Process Timber (RNW Africa)
- Rhino Endangered As Horn Price Escalates (Daily News)
- Wildlife Facing Poaching 'Horror Story' (SW Radio)
Cote d'Ivoire: Public Health Risk as Taps Run Dry
A boy carries water through a slum. Experts say uncontrolled urbanization and the continued decline in the quality of groundwater reserves will increase the risk of it being polluted. (Photo courtesy WaterAid/Benedicte Desrus)
Madagascar: Illegal Rosewood Trade Continues
(file photo) A report by the Environmental Investigation Agency and Global Witness in 2010 found that collusion between timber traders and government officials was contributing to the felling of more than 200 rare hardwood trees a day. (Photo courtesy Greenpeace International)
Kenya: Key Lakes Succumb
Lake Goes Dry: A crocodile carcass lies on the dry bed of Lake Kamnarok in Kenya's Baringo North District. Several years ago, Lakes Kamnarok and Ol Bollosat in Kenya were vibrant water bodies that supported and shaped the ecosystems around them. (Photo courtesy The Nation)
Climate-Change Workshop
Tanzanians are increasingly feeling the intense effects of climate change. It impacts most aspects of daily life and the economy in the East African country, which is largely dependent on agriculture. In 2005, a devastating drought affected millions of people. (Photo courtesy Fidelis Felix)
Swaziland: Going up Against Big Business
Swaziland is highly dependent on sugar cane exports. A recent accident at a processing plant has drawn attention to the environmental watchdog group tasked with enforcing Swaziland's 2002 Environmental Management Act. (Photo courtesy Mujahid Safodien/IRIN)
Farmers Look to Science, Tradition to Resist Drought
Recent years have not been kind to maize crops in Tanzania. Researchers at Uyole Agricultural Research Institute have developed several new varieties of maize that require little water, can grow in less fertile soil and are pest-resistant. (Photo courtesy Maggie Hallahan/Sumitomo Chemical)
Call for Sustainable Fisheries Management
Senegalese fisherman rescue a manatee stranded in a pond during a drought. Greenpeace Africa and Senegalese fishermen are calling on future leaders to review fisheries management legislation and to establish sustainable policies. (Photo courtesy Djibril Sy)
Climate: Breakthrough or Procrastination?
A last-minute global deal which sets a road map for negotiating a new global legally binding regime seeks to impose emission caps with legal force on all major polluters, including developed and developing countries. The new agreement should be signed by 2015 and become effective by 2020. (Photo courtesy Ainhoa Goma/Oxfam International)
Addressing Climate Change as a Human Rights Issue
wenty years after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the promise of sustainable development will be revisited again at the 2012 Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development next June (Photo courtesy MRFCJ)
Kenya: Livestock Insurance - A Chance to Outsmart Drought?
The first thing that hits a visitor to Ginda village in northern Kenya is the smell. Farmer Haro Sora's land is littered with the carcasses of cattle and donkeys that have collapsed following an intense, prolonged drought (Photo courtesy Neil Palmer/CIAT)
West Africa: Shark Fin Hunt Empties Seas
Caption In West Africa, shark fishing began in the 1970's and boomed in the nineties due to rising demand from Asia for shark fins. Since 2003, shark catches have plummeted. (Photo courtesy UN-HABITAT/Julius Mwelu)
Ghana: Forestry Policy Review Underway
(file photo) Ghana's new forestry policy focuses on conserving and protecting biological resources, as opposed to feeding the timber industry which the 1994 policy did. (Photo courtesy Diliff/Wikipedia)
Malawi: Turning to Fertilizer Trees
(file photo) Maize. Smallholder farmers struggling with climate change in this southeast African nation are turning to trees to help their crops grow. Many are intercropping trees with maize to provide moisture-preserving shade for the growing corn. (Photo courtesy IRIN)
Tanzania: Reeling Under Extreme Rainfall
In response to recent floods, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete issued a directive to those living in valleys to move to specially allocated upland areas. The Dar es Salaam regional authority has set aside 200 hectares for flood victims and others living in valleys. (Photo courtesy The Citizen)
Cameroon: Replacing Plastic With Leaves
Discarded plastic bags represent a danger to nature, health and livestock. Traditionally, Cameroonians used banana leaves but plastic has in recent years replaced the use of leaves. (Photo courtesy Faiza Hajji Wozniak)
Lake Victoria's Ports Grapple With Low Water
(file photo) Satellite image of Lake Victoria. The water level at the original Nansio pier gradually dropped the early 1990s, and it is now below the required minimum anchorage depth. (Photo courtesy SeaWiFS/NASA)
Kenya: Shorter Walks for Water
(file photo) A young girl carries water from a river. The acute lack of water in Kenya means families have to trek long distances every day to fetch water. (Photo courtesy Kate Holt/IRIN)
Communities Divided Over Mining
Sierra Leone's Gola Rainforest remains a centre of contention as a local community plans to take their chief to court next week over a controversial 50-year land lease to a mining company. Credit (Photo courtesy GRNP)
Floods Leave Returnees Stranded
Several thousand Angolan returnees from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are stranded by floods in northeastern Angola. (Photo courtesy IRIN)
Cameroon: Turning Dung Into Power
Methane, released from manure, is a potent driver of climate change, and efforts to curb its release around the world now focus on changing the diets of livestock so they produce less of it. (Photo courtesy Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN)
Malawi: Traditional Leaders Help Prevent Forest Fires
(file photo) In 2010, fires damaged nearly 9,000 hectares of trees on a Malawi plantation whose 54,000 hectares make it one of Africa's largest man-made forests. (Photo courtesy IRIN)
Swaziland: Water Threatened by Processing Plant
(file photo) Production of iron ore. The Swaziland Environment Justice Agenda is worried about the effect of a planned iron ore processing center on biological diversity in the area. (Photo courtesy Tami Hultman/allAfrica.com)
Zimbabwe: Risk of Waterborne Diseases
(file photo) Young boys bath in a river. With the advent of the rainy season and poor sanitary and hygienic facilities, rural and peri-urban communities are vulnerable to waterborne diseases. (Photo courtesy Kate Holt/IRIN)
Life on the Edge: Back in Business?
Sierra Leone was torn apart by years of civil war. Now that the country is beginning to rebound, two men see a vast potential for sustainable and ecological tourism. But will they be able to ensure that the impending development boom will benefit the people of Sierra Leone and not just foreign investors?
Zimbabwe: A Look at Urban Farming
There is no doubt that peri-urban farmers have in the last seasons contributed significantly to grain production despite facing a myriad of challenges. Given that Zimbabwe is experiencing some economic hardships, it is pleasing to note that urban farmers have taken the initiative to tackle these challenges. (Photo courtesy Nourishing the Earth)
Nigeria: U.S. Offers Help Cleaning Oil
The U.S. government has offered its assistance in cleaning up the recent Shell oil spill despite the Nigerian Chairman Senate Committee on Environment expressing satisfaction on the prompt and effective way Shell responded on the Bonga oil spill. (Photo courtesy Africa Undisguised)
Getting Early Warning Right in the Sahel
While severely high food prices and lower-than-average cereal outputs are already forcing some vulnerable Sahelians into distress responses, the U.S govt says messaging on the situation needs to be more nuanced. (Photo courtesy Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation/Irin)
Is Privatizing Water the Solution?
Mauritius is the latest African country to consider privatizing its water sector to deal with challenges such as less rain, old infrastructure, waste, mismanagement and over-consumption. (Photo courtesy Oxfam)
Ethiopia: A Dam to Far?
Michael Irgiena doubts if his 10 children will ever be fishermen like him, or have any future living on the shores of the world's largest desert lake, Turkana, in the barren border region of Ethiopia and Kenya. (Photo courtesy Addis Fortune)
Sleeping With One Eye Open
The women of Makoko, a low-lying slum along Nigeria's Atlantic coast, always sleep with one eye open. Many live in fear that when they go to sleep at night they will wake to flooded homes and business. (Photo courtesy Vanguard)
Sirens, African Singing at Climate Change March
Listen to the People, COP17 Protesters Demand.
Too Many Old White Men at COP17, Says One
Topical Focus: Environment
The number of typhoid cases treated in Harare has risen to 756 amid complaints by Kuwadzana residents that fish vendors are now trading at night. Read more »
Government continues to explore ways to curb the increasing killing of rhinos in South Africa Read more »
Top Headlines
- Zimbabwe: Farmers Turn Back to Tradition As Rainfall Changes (AlertNet)
- Congo-Kinshasa: Cholera Soars, Says UN (RNW Africa)
- Mozambique: Flooding Cuts North-South Highway (AIM)
- Mozambique: Cyclone Funso Weakening (AIM)
- Gabon: Banks Loan Gabon 13.7 Mn Euros to Process Timber (RNW Africa)
- East Africa: Rhino Endangered As Horn Price Escalates (Daily News)
- Zimbabwe: Wildlife Facing Poaching 'Horror Story' (SW Radio)
- Kenya: Nema and Karuri Council Sued Over Waste Disposal in Kiambu Town (Nairobi Star)
- Angola: Executive Committed to Environmental Technologies (ANGOP)
- South Africa: The Future of Green Lighting (Biz-Community)
- Nigeria: Association Urges SPDC to Provide Relief for Victims of Oil Spill (Leadership)
- South Africa: Pupils to Learn Importance of Wetlands (Biz-Community)
- South Africa: Non-Censoring of Weather Reporting Welcomed By SANEF (Biz-Community)
- South Sudan: The Transformation of Juba (Citizen)
- South Sudan: Fire Destroys Property in Unity State (Sudan Tribune)
- Angola: Agostinho Neto Foundation Releases Book On Environment (ANGOP)
- Africa: African Union Research Grants - 2012 Open Call for Proposals (Africa & Europe in Partnership)
- Rwanda: Govt to Raise Fees for Gorilla Watching (RNW Africa)
- Nigeria: Lagos Begins Deflooding of 370 Schools (Vanguard)
- Kenya: New Seeds Boost Yields for Drought-Hit Farmers (allAfrica.com)
- South Africa: DEA, NGOs Battle With Rhino Poaching (BuaNews)
- Africa: Americans Embark On a 7,000 Mile in Pursuit of Clean Water (Walk4Water)
- Angola: First President's Widow Launches Environmental Campaign (ANGOP)
- Mozambique: Wild Animals Kill 22 in Manica Province (AIM)
- Zimbabwe: Contain Typhoid Before It Reaches Crisis Levels (The Herald)
- Zimbabwe: Floods Warning Lifted As Cyclone Funso Changes Course (The Herald)
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