ENVIRONMENT

Kenya: Livestock Insurance - A Chance to Outsmart Drought?

A livestock carcass in Marsabit, in northern Kenya, which has suffered prolonged 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. A skull here; half a ribcage there. In some places there are whole animals slumped on the roadside.

Ginda, in Marsabit District, has been hit by the Horn of Africa drought. It triggered a food crisis that affected around 13 million people in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. More »

Photo Essay - Livestock Insurance to Combat Food Crisis

Malawi: Turning to Fertilizer Trees

IRIN

(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.

The Citizen

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.

Environment

West Africa: Shark Fin Hunt Empties Seas

UN-HABITAT/Julius Mwelu

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. This is not good news but a sign that there are less sharks to catch.

Cameroon: Replacing Plastic With Leaves

Faiza Hajji Wozniak

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.

SeaWiFS/NASA

(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.

Kate Holt/IRIN

(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.

GRNP

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

IRIN

Several thousand Angolan returnees from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are stranded by floods in northeastern Angola.

Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN

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.

IRIN

(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.

Tami Hultman/allAfrica.com

(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.

Kate Holt/IRIN

(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.

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

Nourishing the Earth

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.

Africa Undisguised

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.

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation/Irin

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.

Oxfam

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.

Addis Fortune

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.

Vanguard

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.