URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200901290033.html
The Zimbabwe Miners Federation is negotiating with the Environmental Management Agency for small-scale miners to get a grace period to pay for environmental impact assessment reports, an official said on Tuesday.
All miners are by law required to have impact assessment reports before they commence operations.
URL: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/01/prweb1913464.htm
Feline Conservation Federation Supports African Cheetah and Leopard Research Project
Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) January 28, 2009 — The Feline Conservation Federation (www.FelineConservation.org) and T.I.G.E.R.S., The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species have presented $2,000 in funding from their Rare Species Fund to the Matabeleland Leopard and Cheetah Project. This fund was created by T.I.G.E.R.S. and is managed and distributed by the FCF for worldwide conservation of felines and the territories they inhabit. Continue Reading »
URL: http://www.southerntimesafrica.com/inside.aspx?sectid=1371&cat=8
“No African country will achieve all the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015,” revealed the UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon at the 63rd General Assembly held last September.
But, as Ife Kamau Cush reports for New African magazine from New York, part of the problem lies in the development model imposed on African countries by the UN, donor agencies, NGOs and Western governments which contradicts the development model African governments prefer.
During the 63rd session of the United Nation General Assembly last September, several “high-level events” were convened on the sidelines to assess the progress being made by African countries towards the UN Millennium Development Goals. The MDGs are eight objectives that African countries ought to have realised by now, some 50 years after their independence. Continue Reading »
By Ndoda Khubona
Will the Zimbabwean children of the generations to come be able to know what an elephant looks like or they will have to envisage the grandiose beast on images like we do the prehistoric dinosaur of the Jurassic Park fame?
What of eland, kudu, impala, buffalo, giraffe and a host of these wild animals that roam the majestic forests of wild Zimbabwe.
Recent media reports proclaim that the desperate government of Robert Mugabe is busy slaughtering elephant for its starving soldiers in the barracks and one wonders if these reports are true, how much impact the operation would have on the conservation efforts of environmentalist and animal rights activists. Continue Reading »
URL: http://www.chronicle.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=1502&cat=8
A market gardener, Mr Onias Bahadze, of Darras Farm in Gumtree, intends to diversify into commercial fish farming.
Speaking to Business Chronicle yesterday, Mr Bahadze said he had already built four fish ponds.
“I have constructed four fish ponds that are now ready for the fish. The ponds are 30 metres by 30 metres in size. Because fish require clean water, I have also drilled two boreholes from which water would be pumped,” he said. Continue Reading »
By New Ziana
URL: http://www.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=226&cat=1
The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority will on Monday next week lead a delegation from the hunting industry to the city of Reno in Nevada, the United States, for the annual Safari Club International Convention.
Parks director-general Dr Morris Mtsambiwa said the delegation to the convention, which runs from January 21 to 24, would be made up of the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources, the Safari Operators’ Association of Zimbabwe and officials from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
“It is the biggest convention in America for marketing hunts,” he said.
“Every year our tour operators go there to market the hunting quotas that we would have allocated them,” he added.
Dr Mtsambiwa noted that the US was Zimbabwe’s largest clientele base. Continue Reading »
By Merylyn McKenzie Hedger, Tom Mitchell, Jennifer Leavy, Martin Greeley and Anna Downie
Climate Change and Disasters Project – Evaluating Adaptation to Climate Change
The Global Environmental Facility (GEF) commissioned a desk review to assess the current state of evaluation of climate change adaptation interventions (CCAI). The initiative was funded by the UK Department for International Development and provides an overview of existing approaches identifying gaps and next steps in CCAI evaluation.
IDS Key Contacts: Merylyn Hedger
Funders: GEF Evaluation Office (EO) and UK Department for International Development (DFID)
Project dates: 2008
Climate change adaptation is in a ferment of activity. Development agencies are scaling up delivery of interventions. High-level political consideration is being given to significantly increasing financial flows. Continue Reading »
By Muthukumara Mani, Anil Markandya and Viju Ipe, Environment Development, Sustainable Development Department, World Bank
The need to “mainstream” climate policy into development goals is well-recognized within the World Bank, as well as at the national level and among other donor agencies. Individually and collectively, international multilateral and bilateral organizations have responded to the increasing challenge of climate change with an agenda for action to integrate climate concerns into the mainstream of developmental policy making and poverty-reduction initiatives. All have defined major new initiatives designed to help their clients mitigate the impact of past and future development programs on climate change. In addition, they have intensified joint efforts on both climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Actions needed to adapt to climate change and to limit GHGs cover many sectors of the economy (agriculture, water, coastal areas, forests, biodiversity and ecosystems, health, transport and infrastructure investment). Since all of these are affected by most development programs, one can expect the choice of policies for development to have implications for adaptation policy. More widely, macroeconomic and sectoral policies also have potential impacts on emissions of GHGs and on the nature of development in a country, which in turn has implications on the costs of adaptation. It is important for donors and their country partners to be aware of these linkages.
The purpose of this study is to draw on all available material in order to provide targeted guidance on the linkages between the design of development programs and the objectives of adapting to climate change and limiting emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The report should be useful to practitioners in development organizations (multilateral and bilateral institutions) and countries for a better understanding of the implications of development programs and policies on climate change, as well as the implications of climate policies on budgetary and related operations.
Here is the link: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTEEI/Resources/DCCToolkitCRAlores.pdf
By Adam M. Roberts, Senior Vice President, Born Free USA
URL: http://www.bornfreeusa.org/articles.php?p=1874&more=1
The global wildlife trade is a deadly business.
Rhinoceroses gunned down so their horns can be ground into fever-reducing pills or made into traditional dagger handles in Yemen. Mother chimpanzees slaughtered to satisfy the demand for wild animal flesh, their orphaned babies sold into the pet trade. An estimated one hundred million sharks fatally wrenched from their ocean homes each year for sport, for their teeth, or for their fins, which end up floating in a bowl of Asian soup.
The ravenous human appetite for wildlife parts and the products made from them turns gorilla hands to ashtrays, whales to canned meat, sea turtle shells to earrings, and elephant feet to umbrella stands. In the process, individual animals are mercilessly slaughtered, entire families are massacred, and increasing numbers of animal species are driven dangerously closer to extinction. This unconscionable wildlife exploitation is shameful. It is an international disgrace. Continue Reading »
(Flagstaff, Ariz. Jan. 14, 2009) – An NAU political science professor is working with Southern African farmers studying their agricultural expertise and exposing trade agreements that could threaten the world’s food supply.
For more than 30 years, Carol Thompson has been consulting on international agriculture trade issues, spending months or years at a time living in Southern African countries studying agricultural expertise and working to “expose constraining trade agreements imposed upon African farmers.”
He recent book, Biopiracy of Biodiversity – Global Exchange as Enclosure, analyzes current international agricultural trade policies, explains how they originated, and how they are impacting the world and indigenous cultures.
“The future of the planet depends not so much on military power nor on capital speculation but on each one of us making daily food choices that affect global exchange or enclosure of biodiversity—our collective nourishment, our wealth,” Thompson explains.
Cowritten with Andrew Mushita, director of the Community Technology Development Trust in Zimbabwe, the book analyzes international policies for sustainable farming, the successes and failures of industrial agriculture, and the need to preserve biodiversity as a policy for future food security.
“Today only 12 plants provide 75 percent of the food in industrialized countries, making us all vulnerable,” Thompson says. “Africans still rely on 2,000 plants for their food biodiversity.” Continue Reading »
URL: http://www.chronicle.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=1338&cat=8
SMALL-scale fish farmers have been urged to invest in water bodies on their farms to make fish farming a year-round activity.
The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority public relations manager, Ms Olivia Mufute told Business Chronicle that fish were an economic source of relish that families could rely on as a substitute to beef, which had become expensive.
Fish harvesting takes between six and nine months. Continue Reading »
The Learning for Sustainability site - http://learningforsustainability.net - brings together resources to help us address the social and capacity building aspects of managing our forests and other natural resources in a sustainable manner. This resource has been substantially revised and updated over the past month as a guide to on-line resources for researchers and practitioners interested in supporting social learning and collective action. The site highlights the wide range of social skills and processes that are needed to support collaborative change and capacity-building initiatives, and structures these in a practical way. This brings links to several hundred annotated on-line resources together in one easy to access site.
A new section on governance has been added through this update. This is accessible directly off the front page menu system, and provides managers, policy makers and others with links to governance resources that support social change and adaptation. Other new resource sections link to resources to help with community resilience, adaptive management, and visioning and scenario development. Continue Reading »
By Mukoma Wa Ngugi
URL: http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/content/view/10036/
Mukoma Wa Ngugi, author of Hurling Words at Consciousness, is a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, and a political columnist for the BBC Focus on Africa Magazine. www.fpif.org
I have been asked many times a variation of the same question: “Why do Africans wait until it is too late?” For most Westerners, Africa is hunger, war, despotism, AIDS and poverty — full of Africans who are either helpless victims, or who choose to sit on their hands, only lifting them up to accept Western handouts.
But there’s another side of Africa, the one that pushes back. This side is comprised of political and social organizations and activists, school teacher organizations, journalists, and health professionals, as well as women, worker, and youth organizations that patiently chip away at Africa’s problems usually with no funding, media coverage, or national and international recognition to speak of.
These Africans work against great odds to prevent famine, war, human rights abuse, the spread of AIDS, and a host of other urgent issues. When tragedy strikes, they work hard to ameliorate the effect. But even when they aren’t facing political persecution, they are under-funded and without the protection that comes with media coverage. They are the unseen, under-supported and unrecognized pillars of African societies. Continue Reading »
By: Bernard Mpofu
URL: http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com/local/21772-elephants-slaughtered-to-feed-hungry-soldiers.html
In a move likely to appal conservationists the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) and the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority have reportedly struck a deal that has resulted in the authority slaughtering elephants to feed soldiers at army barracks across the country.
Sources in the army told the Zimbabwe Independent that there were acute food shortages in the barracks and the supply of elephant meat was a big relief. Continue Reading »
By Brendan Borrell
URL: http://green.msn.com/Home/eBay-Ivory-Ban-May-Hurt-Conservation/
If, like me, you have always wanted to get a carved, elephant-ivory snuff box for that special someone, this holiday season may well be your last opportunity. The online auction site eBay announced on Oct. 20 that it would ban nearly all ivory sales on its auction sites. In November, the company was embarrassed by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which estimated that it was hosting an elephant-ivory trade in the United States worth $3.2 million per year.
This may seem like another example of corporate greenwashing—a way for the auction site to paper over its misdeeds and parade around as a concerned environmental steward. In fact, the new policy is directly at odds with mainstream conservationists. Just one week after eBay made its big announcement, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species—with support from WWF—was going forward with a one-time auction of government ivory stockpiles from elephants that either died of natural causes or had been culled in population-control programs in four southern African countries. These sales netted $15 million, earmarked for elephant conservation and local community-development programs. Although international laws governing the ivory trade are complex, the truth is that most of the ivory being sold on eBay was totally legal. More to the point, buying ivory online may actually be a good thing for conservation: The more snuff boxes we demand, the better chance that elephants and their ecosystems have to withstand the pressures of modernization. Continue Reading »
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