Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio has inadvertently been thrust to the forefront of the San people's fight to return to their ancestral lands after the Botswana government removed them. According to Survival International, an advocacy group supporting the San's opposition of their eviction from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), San leader Roy Sesana told DiCaprio in a letter: "Friends have told us that you are in a film, The Blood Diamond, which shows how badly diamonds can hurt. We know this - when we were chased off our land, officials told us it was because of the diamond finds."

This preliminary investigation by ECOS documents the socio-economic and environmental impact of oil exploitation in the Melut Basin in Upper Nile State, Sudan, as told by inhabitants of the area and photo­graphed from satellites.It focuses on the Melut and Maban Counties, Renk District, which fall into concession blocks 3 and 7, held by the Petrodar Operating Company Ltd. under a Production Sharing Agreement with the Sudanese Government.

Latest satellite images of the natural resources of Africa show that it is under an environmental assault of bigger proportions which could have disturbing consequences on the livelihood of people across the continent in future. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which launched a new atlas at an international water conference held in the Swedish capital of Stockholm last month, Africa's river basins, fresh water lakes, forests, coastal lagoons and wildlife sanctuaries are under siege from unsustainable exploitation.

Liberians are apt to lose the forty percent of the National Forestry Reform Law of 2006 exclusively reserved for them on all established commercial forestry areas. According to a release issued by Mr. Oscar Cooper, Chief Executive Officer of the Inland Logging Corporation, the House and the Senate are being coerced by the International Community through the United Nations to change the newly passed "National Forestry Reform Law of 2006".

The government's withdrawal of free agricultural inputs for new farmers is certain to affect food production adversely, analysts are warning. Farmers who were allocated land under the fast-track land reform programme that began in 2000 have received fertilisers and seed for the past three years, for which they could pay after the harvest, but last month the agriculture ministry announced that it had stopped the "free" inputs scheme.

Authorities in Cote d'Ivoire have arrested two senior French officials of a Dutch-based commodities company in connection with a toxic waste scandal that has shaken an already jittery government in the war-divided country. "They have been charged with infractions of toxic waste laws," said Justice Ministry official Ali Yeo. Authorities prevented the two executives of commodities trader Trafigura Beheer BV from leaving the country late Saturday as they were about to board a flight to Europe.

International waste removal experts in protective suits and masks have begun cleaning up toxic waste that was dumped in several areas of Abidjan in a scandal that has further raised tension in the city as the end of the president’s term approaches. Seven deaths have been attributed to the waste, although autopsies have yet to confirm the cause.

Locusts have invaded farms in Nigeria, destroying crops as farmers prepare for harvest, officials have said. Diyos Auta, state agriculture commissioner for Taraba, in the centre of the country, said the locusts had destroyed 50 000ha of crops in the past week. "These pests migrated from neighbouring Cameroon and they move like clouds and so far they have destroyed 50 000ha of crops, which were ripe for harvest," he said.

Covered in ochre-dusted red cloth, four young Maasai men guide a herd of cattle across the busy road to Nairobi. Among the herd are several zebras, not ready yet to be separated from the livestock. The herders don't seem to mind their presence. From this town — Kitengela, in the Kajiado district — Nairobi's skyscrapers are clearly visible in the distance.

In this article, Hugh McCullum gives a clear and complete indication of what lies behind Zimbabwe's present chaotic state. From Cecil Rhodes, through Ian's Smith UDI, to farm invasions, political violence and slum clearance under Robert Mugabe, land has been the problem.

Thousands of Nubian archeological sites will be flooded by a dam that the Sudanese government is building at the Nile's Fourth Cataract. When the Chinese-backed hydro-electricity project is finished in mid-2008, it will create a lake 170 kilometres long and up to four kilometres wide. Much of the Nubian heartland will lie at the bottom.

High international oil prices have emboldened Algeria to make a u-turn on earlier attempts at liberalising the sector. Algeria, which was a member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), has slapped a windfall tax on surplus profits as well as curtailed the role of foreign investors in oil production in a set of new amendments for the sector. The new provisions require that state-owned Sonatrach, Africa’s largest company by revenue, take a mandatory minimum 51 percent stake in all exploration and production ventures.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation this week announced it will partner with the Rockefeller Foundation to combat poverty, beginning with a combined $150 million donation to improve agricultural schemes in Africa. The announcement comes as part of a proposed "green revolution" for Africa similar to the one funded by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations in Latin America and Asia beginning in the 1940s.

When President Kibaki announced his Government's commitment to ending the persistent land problem at the Coast on Madaraka Day, the local residents dismissed it as yet another populist statement from a politician.

Draft legislation drawn up at a regional conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, is mainly aimed at guaranteeing the property rights of returnees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in countries such as Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Rwanda and Uganda.

Six people have now died from the toxic waste dumped in the biggest Ivory Coast city, Abidjan, while 9,000 have sought treatment, the government says. The UN has set up an inter-agency team to respond to the crisis. A French team is analysing the waste, and says it will produce a report by the end of this week.

Ivory Coast's government has resigned after toxic waste dumped around the main city Abidjan killed three people, made 1,500 ill and triggered street protests. Interim Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny offered the resignation of his cabinet to President Laurent Gbagbo during an emergency meeting in the political capital Yamoussoukro which had been meant to work out a response to the crisis.

Many of Africa's ecosystems are not just serving the region, but the whole world, for example, through the carbon soaking value of tropical forests. This alone probably equals or exceeds the current or exceeds the current level of international aid being provided to developing countries.

Lesotho, the tiny mountain kingdom, punches above its weight. This is not reflected in a bossy attitude; rather it has done what is seldom expected of relatively weak African states — it has tackled corruption in the multibillion rand Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme head on, prosecuting corrupt officials and bribe-paying corporations.

Economic development in Africa is underpinned by the quality and integrity of the natural resource base. The region’s environmental assets provide opportunities for Africa to achieve the objectives of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and make good progress towards meeting the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).