While the most recent Tsunami has spared the coastal areas of Kenya and the tidal waves nowhere reached above the high-water mark, the threat to the coastal ecosystems continues to come from within. Though inshore trawling was banned along the Kenyan coast - after many years of struggle by environmentally concerned organizations and citizens and already under the former government of then President Daniel Arap Moi - the new Kenya Government seems to disregard all decrees and agreements as well as its own political commitment towards poverty eradication as well as the respective Millennium Goals it signed at the United Nations.

The Cape Town High Court decided in favor of Earthlife Africa this week and set aside the approval for the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR). Earthlife Africa and other interested parties will now have their chance to challenge Eskom's version of the truth. ESKOM, the second respondent in this case wishes to construct a demonstration model 110 Mega Watt class PBMR at the site of the only existing nuclear plant in South Africa near Cape Town.

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) has learnt that its objections, lodged exactly 7 months ago, strenuously resisting Dow Agrosciences' application to field test its GM maize event TC 1507 have been successful. On the 23 November 2004, the Executive Council (EC), the government body under the aegis of the Department of Agriculture and comprising of government officials from various national departments, took a decision not to approve Dow's application. The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in particular, raised questions about impacts on non-target organisms, whereas the Department of Science and technology called upon the Registrar to investigate the ACB's objections in greater detail.

Water supply problems in the Gabonese capital Libreville are going from bad to worse with residents used to drawing water from taps in their own homes forced to queue up with buckets at standpipes in the street. The privatisation of the state water and electricity company SEEG in 1997 and a doubling of capital investment last year by its new French owner Vivendi, has failed to ensure that supply keeps pace with a rapid growth in demand.

People consume between 2000 and 5000 litres of water per day for agricultural purposes. As the global population grows, the demand for food – and therefore water – increases. In many places, this means less water for the environment. Water must be managed to meet food security, poverty reduction and environmental objectives.

On 10 December, 2004, the noted environmentalist, women's rights activist and pro-democracy campaigner Ms. Wangari Maathai became the first African woman - and one of only 12 women in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She first gained international recognition in 1977, when she founded the Green Belt Movement to combat deforestation and soil erosion in her native Kenya. Nearly three decades and 30 million trees later, the movement had literally transformed the Kenyan landscape and become an influential force for democracy and women's rights.

During an exclusive interview with Africa Renewal in New York on 19 December and published on January 06, the 64-year-old biologist spoke about her long struggle for environmental and social justice and challenged African governments to "do their part" to accelerate Africa's social and economic development. She spoke about the connection between human rights, democracy and environmental conservation, and called on industrialized countries to support African initiatives for peace, democracy and environmental justice. The interview is reproduced here in accordance with Africa Renewal's republication policy, which states that material may be freely reproduced, with attribution to "Africa Renewal, United Nations".

AR: Could you please talk about the connection between human rights and environmental issues, and how you came to it?

Maathai: It is not as if, 30 years ago, I saw the link and worked on it. I was responding to the needs of rural populations, especially women, who were looking for firewood. They were looking for food. They were looking for building materials, for fodder for the animals. They were trying to meet the basic needs in their communities.

I happened to be at the University of Nairobi at that time, teaching. At the same time I was participating in the National Council of Women of Kenya, which is an umbrella organization for women of different social backgrounds. Rural women would bring to the table the issues I've just mentioned.

In listening to those women -- and since I had grown up in the rural areas -- I immediately connected what they were asking for, with the environment, with the land. I suggested that what we needed was to plant trees, because if we planted trees we would get firewood. Of course it would take a long time, but not too long because we are in the tropics and trees grow very fast. At any rate I could not see an alternative. I said, "If we protect the soil and we don't lose the topsoil, we are likely to produce more food. If we plant indigenous food crops, we are more likely to get food that is more nourishing.

When I am confronted with a problem I want to know: What's the source? If I'm dealing with the symptoms, I will continue dealing with them for a very long time! But if I get to the bottom, I can deal with the cause.

I started seeing that we really needed to do massive rehabilitation of our land. We needed to stop soil erosion. And I realized we needed to do that in large numbers; we needed to organize.

It was then that I confronted the problem of democratic governance. I noticed that we really did not have a democratic system, because immediately we started organizing, the government did not want us to organize. The government said you cannot meet. You need a license. That was their way of controlling. I eventually understood that what the government was doing was preventing people from meeting, from sharing information, asking questions, getting to the root causes of the problems they were facing.

AR: You could have gone to the president and perhaps persuaded him to act, instead of mobilizing the people. But you didn't organize it that way. Why was that?

Maathai: I didn't organize it that way because in the beginning I did not even think anybody would interfere. I thought it would be almost automatic: if people wanted to organize, they should be able to organize. Why did the government refuse people to organize? Because the president himself did not want people informed, people organized. This was a way of controlling people.

By the time we were massively organizing -- in the mid-'80s -- nobody was paying much attention to us, because it was just a bunch of women organizing. But when President [Daniel arap] Moi started really getting a grip on the country, that's when this organizing became noticed. The government machinery decided it should not be allowed. There was need to control the information that was reaching the people.

Now, why do we not have adequate clean drinking water? It is because there is logging in the forests protected by the government. So if there is logging in the forests, we must ask the government that question. If the government is doing it to benefit itself -- to benefit individual members of the government or to benefit companies that are connected to the government -- then of course the government does not want anybody to ask those questions.

Another thing we have been very much concerned about is green open spaces in the cities. There was a lot of privatizing of green open spaces by the people in power, or rich people. They would take the space and sell it to businesspeople to build development complexes. But we needed open spaces. So if you're going to say you cannot privatize this green open space because it is necessary for the urban environment, then you're going to be in trouble with the government or people who are connected with the government, because they're the ones getting these spaces.

These are examples to show how I eventually came to understand the importance of democratic space to be able to protect the environment. And to understand that if you're in a system which does not allow its citizens to participate in decision-making, or demand certain decisions from their government, it is impossible to protect the environment. Therefore for me, the connection between protecting the environment, managing resources responsibly and allowing for equitable distribution of these resources to avoid conflict required democratic space. The [Nobel] committee recognized this holistic approach -- that we need democratic space to be able to manage our resources responsibly, sustainably and to be able to share them equitably.

Otherwise, sooner or later there will be conflict. And we had quite a bit in the country [Kenya]. Sometimes it can flare into major conflicts such as we saw in Rwanda, or as we are seeing in Darfur. [There are] many examples in the world. What are people fighting over? Natural resources. Where these conflicts are, there is not democratic government. It is a government that does not respect democratic space or human rights. It's a government where a few people are in charge and the majority are not.

AR: Most economists define development in a traditional way -- producing cash crops, industrial development, emphasizing trade. But you don't define it that way.

Maathai: No. Development to me is a quality of life. It's not necessarily acquisition of a lot of things. I have been using the example of an African stool. An African stool has three legs. On those legs balance a basin. One of those three legs is peace. Another is good governance. And the other is good management of our resources. Now this good management of our resources, as I've said, includes equitable distribution -- allowing as many people as possible to share in the natural resources. This allows as many people as possible to experience respect, dignity [and] respect of their rights -- and therefore avoids conflict.

When you have these three legs, then the basin to me is development. It may be a very small basin, but it may also be a very wide basin. That basin, if it is not resting on the three legs, will not last. It will collapse. Even in countries where we can think there is peace, there is dissension. There is dissatisfaction.

AR: What impact does the international economic system have on this stool?

Maathai: Quite often we are used to thinking in blocks. When we look at peace, we just concentrate on peace. We go to the United Nations and have a Security Council decision: how much money we want to use for reconstruction, how much for peacekeeping forces and all that. Another agency is looking at what kind of democratic space is needed. Another one is trying to see how resources are going to be managed. Everybody is looking at their own sectors differently. Hardly ever do they come together so that they work in synergy. That is partly why the basin doesn't hold.

The Norwegian Nobel peace committee has told the world two things. Firstly, it is extremely important for us to look at all these things holistically, together, simultaneously. Secondly, to invest before there is conflict. If we invested as many resources before the conflict as we invest after, we would probably prevent more conflicts in the world.

If we invested as many resources before the conflict as we invest after, we would probably prevent more conflicts in the world.

We spend so many resources trying to reconstruct, trying to rebuild peace. Yet before we went over the cliff, we were not too willing to work together, to work holistically and to invest all those resources to deal with the causes that threw us over that cliff!

Will the United Nations development agencies address this? I hope so. Will the governments in the industrialized countries address these issues that way? I hope so. Will the Africans -- I feel that a big challenge has come to Africa -- will the African governments address this holistically? I hope so. If we do, then we will have changed the way we think. We will have reached a new level of consciousness.

AR: Back in 1995 you gave a presentation at the Beijing women's conference that included criticism of the world economic system and globalization. Now, 10 years later, globalization is that much farther advanced. What are your views today?

Maathai: It has only gotten worse. Africa has not been given the opportunity to trade fairly. The trade balance, the trade tariffs, the rules and regulations which are required for Africa, are still very harsh, very unequal.

In the year 2000 we were part of the [debt reduction] campaign Jubilee 2000. The debt has continued to eat into the capital of Africa so strongly that many governments are still not able to service their people as long as they are servicing the debt. We raised all the issues why it should be cancelled, but the industrialized countries did not do very much. They did very little in terms of the HIPC [Heavily Indebted Poor Countries] initiative.

Unfortunately, our own governments have not done their part either. I remember the industrialized countries and even the World Bank saying, "If we cancelled this debt, it is not the poor who will benefit. It is the leaders -- who are corrupt, who are mismanaging the economies of your countries, who are undemocratic, who are engaging in wars and making it impossible for people to do even the little that they could -- who will benefit. Therefore it doesn't make any sense to cancel."

That's where the challenge is today -- for African governments to decide whether they want to continue doing business as usual or whether they want to appreciate this challenge that has been brought to us. If our friends want to assist, we need to create an enabling environment in Africa. An enabling environment will then require that the international system deals with African governments justly and fairly. But until we put that house in order, this international system will continue giving excuses.

Fortunately, there are some governments that have addressed some of the bottlenecks. Kenya is one good example. As part of our campaign, we eventually reached democracy in the year 2002. But the challenge is still on the African side to a very large extent, to not give an excuse to those who don't want to help us.

* For the rest of the interview, please click on the link below.

In the past decade, many African governments have been engaging in far-reaching legislative, institutional and financial reforms in the water sector. These reforms have focused on 'Integrated Water Resources Management' and encompass changes to registration, water rights, water fees, and basin-level decision-making. However, these reforms have generally paid little attention to their impact on small-scale water development, use, and management in rural areas.

Rapid population growth only promises to exacerbate water shortages in Lagos. According to the United Nations, the city's population will jump to 24 million during the next decade, making Lagos the third largest city in the world. "We have to speed up infrastructural development because as we increase, so the population increases. We have an institutional problem in the sense that as our infrastructures improve they also attract more people, so it is a circle that keeps growing," says Olumuyiwa Coker, group managing director of the Lagos Water Corporation. Global leaders have made 2015 the deadline for halving the number of people without access to safe drinking water.

The Nigerian Red Cross Society yesterday urged Nigerians to be prepared for the possibility of a Tsunami-type calamity which took Asia, among other nations, by surprise last month occuring here. THISDAY had earlier reported some experts as warning that Nigeria’s western boundary with Cameroon was an active volcanic region. The fracture zones include Romanche (western), Chain (western flank), Charcot (more of the Niger Delta) and Cameroon Fracture Zone (Eastern Boundary of Nigeria), which the experts said, was active. "Some land mass had even been washed away unnoticed by people in remote coastal areas. The Red Cross still maintains its position that the country and its people must develop the appropriate capacity to manage and cope with high and low profile natural and man-made disasters", the society said.

The tsunami triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean that struck the Horn of Africa coastline just over a week ago has affected about 18,000 households of varying sizes in Somalia, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. Many of those affected were living in small villages along the Somali coastline, particularly in the northeastern regions. OCHA, in a situation report released on Monday, estimated that 54,000 people were directly affected. In Jeriban and Eyl districts, 1,000 houses were either damaged or destroyed and around 1,200 boats ruined.

Two Nigerian admirals have been sacked for oil smuggling after they were found guilty of being involved in the disappearance of an oil tanker. The tanker was seized by a naval patrol two years ago as it was carrying 10,000 tonnes of crude oil alleged to have been stolen from the Delta region.

The Angolan army arbitrarily detained and tortured civilians with impunity in Cabinda, and continues to restrict their freedom of movement despite an apparent end to the decades-long separatist conflict in the oil-rich enclave, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released in December. In the past year, the Angolan army has subjected civilians to extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture and other mistreatment, as well as sexual violence. The Angolan army also denies civilians their freedom of movement. Human Rights Watch found little evidence of recent abuses committed by rebel factions against civilians, probably because of the rebels’ weakened capacity.

Southern Africa has experienced severe food shortages over the past few years. These have been caused by several factors, including climate change and variability, problems with governance (including poor risk-management, and inadequate early warning systems) and wider structural issues (such as globalisation). Many parts of the region are also vulnerable to the impacts of large-scale environmental change, including land degradation and biodiversity loss.

In most of Africa, formal individual title deeds to land have failed to solve the problems of homelessness and insecurity of tenure among the rural and urban poor, or the mushrooming of slums in the cities. This was the gist of views aired during the recently concluded Expert Group Meeting on the new legal frameworks to land tenure, at Gigiri in Nairobi, where it was pointed out that in some African countries, less than one per cent of the land was titled. Participants from Africa, the US and Europe concluded that large-scale land titling is not a panacea to solving land tenure problems in the developing world.

The Rapid Environmental Impact Assessment in Disasters Workshop is to be held from 2nd to 4th February 2005 in Karen-Nairobi, Kenya. The Nairobi location for the workshop is intended to facilitate participation by NGO/IO/Donor staff based on East Africa, including staff working in southern Sudan. The three day workshop will prepare participants to use the REA in disaster and crisis situations. The workshop will include discussions on the use of the REA for disasters commonly encountered in Africa. Participants will also receive a CD with an eLearning program on the REA as well as a wealth of other reference materials. The cost of the workshop will be from £260 GBP per person, with partial scholarships available. For further information or an application form please contact RedR on: email: [email protected] or phone: +44 (0) 207 233 3116.

A hunting boom driven by wealthy tourists is pushing black South Africans off the land to make way for game, generating anger that, a decade after apartheid, whites still own most of the countryside. Hundreds of commercial farms have evicted their labourers and converted into game parks, turning swaths of arable land into fenced wilderness for trophy animals such as lions and antelopes.

The cost of adapting to climate change is set to rise and is being hidden from the general public in rich countries, says a report from the New Economics Foundation (NEF). "Poor countries, who will suffer the impacts of climate change first and worst, are being fatally short changed, as industrialised nations abdicate responsibility for a problem they are overwhelmingly responsible for creating," says 'Cast Adrift', released this week.

The NEF says rich nations currently spend $73 billion every year subsiding industry that fuels climate change. This amount should be matched with funding to assist poor countries adapt to the impacts of climate change, says NEF.

"Given rich nations historical responsibility for global warming, and the resources at their disposal, at the very least the funds available for adaptation to the majority world should be raised substantially." But rich countries have currently committed $0.41 billion in additional funds to help poor countries adapt to the problem.

In South Africa, as in many developing and newly-industrialised countries, legislation on air pollution has failed to keep pace with mushrooming industries. So local residents, like many in poor communities around the globe, have faced the problem of investigating their claim that industries on their doorsteps are making them sick. The small yet tenacious South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) has become the first African grassroots group to take the science into their own hands by taking their own air samples.

One of the biggest land invasions ever seen in South Africa has sparked a court battle between the government and a white farmer who says he is being effectively expropriated. The Supreme Court of Appeals in May ordered the state to compensate Braam Duvenage and resettle around 40 000 people who moved onto his farm in Benoni outside Johannesburg after their nearby township ran out of living space. But state attorneys refused, saying Duvenage should deal with the matter and they took the case to the Constitutional Court.

Kenyan authorities have begun to repossess millions of hectares of public land acquired illegally since independence in 1963, officials say. Lands and Housing Minister Amos Kimunya said land seized by at least 60 people, including former President Daniel arap Moi, had already been taken back.