When Manuel Lopes-Lima set out to survey aquatic biodiversity on the Corubal River in 2022, he’d set his expectations very low. The river that straddles the West African nations of…
As a young student, Aristide Kamla had “big plans” when he traveled to Lake Ossa in Cameroon to conduct his master's degree fieldwork with the little-known African manatee. He was hoping…
Growing up in the village of Domboshava in central Zimbabwe, Edwin Tambara, the African Wildlife Foundation’s director of global leadership, recalls how the surrounding Miombo woodland was a pharmacy, hardware…
Fancy a taste of your own toenails? That’s what vendors in Vietnam or China could say when offering powdered rhino horn. This coveted “trophy” is made up of keratin, the…
ZOMBA PLATEAU, Malawi — The Zomba Forest Reserve is a tale of two faces. A large part of the northern section of the plateau is stripped to its last undergrowth…
KARKAYE, Krim Krim, Chad — In the vibrant fields of Karkaye, a village in southern Chad, Eunice Mbernodji, a mother of nine, is turning once-barren, dry land into a lush…
APAMPRAMA, Ghana — Since 2017, the Ghanaian government has aggressively pursued small-scale miners operating in forest reserves across the country, blaming them for the destruction of the country’s forests. But…
In 2022, the West African nation of Ghana lost 18,000 hectares, or 44,500 acres, of forests — an area the size of 30,000 football fields. But instead of strengthening restrictions,…
Evolution thought of everything long before we did. Take the case of the forest hinge-back tortoise (Kinixys erosa) found in the Congo Basin, as well as parts of West Africa and all the…
Scientists, communities and government officials from five African countries agree that the freshwater fish stocks in the Kavango and Zambezi River systems are in severe trouble. Delegates representing all three…
Researchers have found that low-intensity logging of a tropical forest has no negative impacts on key ecosystem services such as the carbon storage and food availability for wildlife. But even…
Northern Benin is fast becoming one of the most dangerous areas in the world for wildlife rangers: In late July, five rangers working for the conservation NGO African Parks were…
LOLIONDO, Tanzania — Whistleblowers speaking to Mongabay have reported instances of poaching over decades in Tanzania linked to a luxury hunting firm catering to the United Arab Emirates’ elites and…
Simon Espley attended the pioneer stage of a brave and visionary project to translocate 2,000 farmed rhinos into the wild — 12% of the wild white rhino population. This is his story.
The Gambles’s flatwing, a critically endangered damselfly with glittering translucent wings, is so rare scientists estimate there could be as few as 250 left in the wild. When zoologist Abiodun…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — After a devastating human toll of 11 dead and several ill due to continued air and river pollution, the village of Kabombwa has definitively…
MPONDOLAND, South Africa — The day the prospectors came, so did the storm. It was 2007, and clouds barreled toward the coast, driven by a wind that churned up dust…
Climate change threatens public health by affecting the distribution and spread of food-borne pathogens, according to a recent study by food scientists from Benha University in Egypt published in Nature.…
Lalao Aigrette has worked to protect the mangroves of her native Madagascar for more than 16 years. Growing up inland, she didn’t see the ocean until she was around 20…
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is a pillar of stability and opportunity for at least 16 million people worldwide, particularly in rural, impoverished communities. But with these pros also…
On May 24, 2024, clashes broke out between members of a local community and security guards at an oil palm plantation in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo…
Growing coffee in a forest with other trees and plants—a system known as agroforestry—can be as productive as growing it in a monoculture field, but it’s much less harmful, according…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — In Manono, a town in the province of Tanganyika, in the northern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) Katanga region, a mining…
KARÈ, Togo — Under the hot sun of an April afternoon in northern Togo, we made our way by motorcycle across the impoverished prefecture of Kozah. It wasn’t a long…
Ethiopia's Abijata-Shalla Lakes National Park is set in a semiarid landscape of grassy plains, hills scattered with acacia trees, and ravines cut by seasonal streams. Spanning 887 square kilometers (342…
Three years into an ambitious wetland restoration project in East Africa, conservationist Julie Mulonga says she’s learned the value of small steps. The Source to Sea project set out to…
In May 2024, local media in the Democratic Republic of Congo reported that Mbororo herders had moved from the northern province of Bas-Uélé to neighboring Nord-Ubangi, signaling that ongoing tensions…
In recent years, there has been a significant trend in young people from around the world joining the fight against environmental threats and climate change. These educated youths have played…
Oil drilling by French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies is disturbing wildlife in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda’s largest and most-visited protected area. This is according to a briefing by…
For more than 15 years, an international team of researchers intermittently followed five groups of eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in the jungles of Uganda and Tanzania. With cameras in…
For many people across sub-Saharan Africa, Cleome gyandra, commonly known as the spider plant, is not food: it’s a weed. A tall, leggy plant with stars of almond-shaped leaves and…
Deep in the Congo rainforest, Edward McLester witnessed a spectacle few scientists have seen: a troop of golden-bellied mangabeys (Cercocebus chrysogaster) causing a ruckus, their vibrant underbellies flashing through the…
