By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman*

Forest elephants in the Mbeli River, Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Congo. Central African countries are developing strategies against climate change. / Thomas Breuer/Wikicommons

KIKWIT, DR Congo, Mar 1 (IPS) – Governments and civil society organisations in Central Africa are slowly developing strategies in response to global warming. But specialists say the steps being [...]

By Brahima Ouédraogo

Low rainfall is having disastrous effects on wildlife in W Regional Park, which stretches across Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger. / Nicolas Barbier/Wikicommons

OUAGADOUGOU, Feb 2 (IPS) – The story of a pair of buffalo aggressively prowling the edges of a village in eastern Burkina Faso is a warning sign of severe water [...]

By Isaiah Esipisu

Lukmanu Whumbi, a farmer in Northern Ghana, points to fields of rice grown using the right inputs and techniques. / Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

TAMALE, Ghana, Dec 21 (IPS) – In Dundo village in Nyankpala district, Northern Ghana, 10 women are busy weeding a rice field on a piece of land donated to them [...]

By Ignatius Banda

More than 70 percent of Africans – the majority of whom are women –rely on farming for survival. / Ignatius Banda/IPS

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Dec 20 (IPS) – Duduzile Sibanda takes a break from preparing her long stretch of land for her maize crop in rural Mberengwa, in Zimbabwe’s Midlands province. She wipes [...]

By Sam Olukoya

In Ajegunle, a low-lying slum in Lagos, flooding is also disrupting the economic activities of women / Sam Olukoya/IPS

LAGOS, Nigeria, Dec 15 (IPS) – The women of Makoko, a low-lying slum close to the Lagos Lagoon along Nigeria’s Atlantic coast, always sleep with one eye open. Many live in fear that when [...]

By Lee Middleton

South Africa's first eco-friendly and energy efficient low-income housing development in Atlantis. / Lee Middleton/IPS

ATLANTIS, South Africa, Dec 14 (IPS) – Something unusual is happening in Atlantis. Created in the 1970s to fulfill the apartheid government's agenda to evict "coloured" South Africans from Cape Town, Atlantis has always been best known [...]

By Lee Middleton
 
OCEAN VIEW, South Africa, Dec 13 (IPS) – Having observed changes in the sea and the life cycles of the rock lobsters that their livelihoods depend on, a group of fisherwomen from the Western Cape, South Africa are calling on government to adjust fishing seasons to adapt to what they claim are climate [...]

By Isaiah Esipisu*

Peter Nyaga surveys his four-year-old eucalyptus woodlot. / Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

NAIROBI, Dec 12 (IPS) – On a steep slope of land in Thangathi village in Central Province, Kenya, Peter Nyaga surveys his four-year-old eucalyptus woodlot. He calculates the value of every tree on his two-hectare piece of land at maturity in three years.

At [...]

By Stephen Leahy
 

The United Nations climate negotiations ended with the world’s nations still to agree on a new global treaty to reduce carbon emissions. / Tinus de Jager/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 11 (IPS) – The world is increasingly committed to dangerous levels of global warming with yet another failure by nations of the world to [...]

By Stephen Leahy

Protesters rally in Durban on Dec. 3, 2011. / IPS Africa

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) – No one is happy late Friday at the very contentious U.N. climate talks that went into extra time on Saturday. As the lights flicker on a rainy night here, the partial power failure echoes the [...]

Kristin Palitza spoke to REGINE GÜNTHER, climate protection and energy policy chief at the World Wide Fund for Nature.
 

WWF climate scientist Regina Guenther. / Kristin Palitza/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) – Despite the high risk, it remains difficult to convince politicians to take immediate action to prevent further climate change and make available the [...]

By Isaiah Esipisu*
DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) – For the Laibon community, a sub-tribe of Kenya’s Maasai ethnic group, the 33,000-hectare Loita Forest in the country’s Rift Valley Province is more than just a forest. It is a shrine.

Olonana Ole Pulei’s community is a sub-tribe of Kenya’s Maasai ethnic group. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

“It is [...]

By Kristin Palitza

Almost nobody believes that a second, comprehensive commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is still possible. / Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 8 (IPS) – The last hours of the 17th United Nations climate change summit in Durban have begun. Since the arrival of almost 150 ministers and heads of state on [...]

By Stephen Leahy

Reducing carbon emissions will not result in limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius. / Zukiswa Zimela

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 8 (IPS) – Countries at the United Nations climate change negotiations have publicly acknowledged their current pledges to reduce carbon emissions will not result in limiting global warming to [...]

By Kanya D’Almeida

Philippi residents grow organic produce for sale to upmarket restaurants in Cape Town as well as for their own table. / Kristin Palitza/IPS

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (IPS) – The forests in Africa absorb over 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon annually. With these diverse and natural forests, grasslands and prairie lands disappearing under investment schemes [...]