Tanzania is considering legal action after 22 European trawlers were spotted illegally fishing in its waters. The ships were spotted by European Union surveillance planes and the information was passed to the Tanzanian authorities, EU sources say. EU sources estimate that some 70 ships are operating illegally, targeting tuna, kingfish, lobsters and prawns.

President Abdoulaye Wade has cancelled his summer holiday and set up an emergency task force to deal with a plague of locusts that threatens to invade the north of Senegal. Officials said swarms of mature locusts had begun laying eggs in the northern province of Matam, prompting fears of large-scale crop destruction by their offspring in a few weeks' time.

Earthlife Africa eThekwini has welcomed the announcement by the Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Ms Rejoice Mabudafhasi, that the Thor Chemicals cleanup is finally being launched. This follows years of action by Earthlife Africa to stop the company from importing toxic mercury waste for incineration which has had a detrimental effect on both the health of workers at Thor Chemicals and the surrounding environment.

Republic of Congo said it is investigating complaints of extensive illegal fishing by Chinese ships in the West African nation's waters, including alleged fishing with dynamite. Republic of Congo fishers say Chinese vessels are trawling waters officially set aside for traditional fishers and dropping dynamite in the water to produce massive kills of fish, which then float to the surface and are easily scooped from the sea.

Residents of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, have been forced to use river water because of ongoing breaks in the purified water supply, raising concern over possible outbreaks of waterborne diseases. Like many other urban residents, it's a daily routine for 12-year-old Stella Chiyangwa to walk six kilometres to a river to fetch water for household use - she now lives a life not much different from that of her counterparts in remote rural areas.

A special report by the UK Newspaper, The Independent, this week highlighted the potential legal confrontation between the descendents of Kenya's colonial families and the nomadic Masai tribe over the incompatibility of ecotourism and the Masai's right to graze freely. The area relies on tourism for 70% of its income, but a prolonged drought in Laikipia has raised emotions even higher. Furthermore, the paper reports that the matter will come to a head on 15th August when the Masai will claim that a 100-year old land lease signed by their chief, Olonana Ole Mbatiany, and Sir Donald Stewart of the British East Africa protectorate, will expire. If the land does not revert to the Masai, they plan to take their case to the International Court of Justice.

Angry Sierra Leoneans are demanding that their government ask Guinea to withdraw its troops from territory which they occupied five years ago. Speaking about the matter, the spokesperson for Sierra Leone's President said, "The Guineans have no stated aim to occupy any inch of Sierra Leonean territory. The matter of Yenga is being negotiated at the highest political level. And I can assure you that it will be resolved soon."

A San Bushman who defied a state order to move out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve told the Botswana High Court on Tuesday that the land had been given to him by God. The Botswana High Court is hearing a case brought by 243 San Bushmen challenging their relocation from the game reserve, one of the world's largest sanctuaries and an area which has been their home for thousands of years.

Government has unveiled a draft agricultural charter setting out tough empowerment targets including 35% black ownership of agriculture-based companies by 2014. The draft charter also said that 50% of agricultural land, including that held by the state, should be available to black farmers by 2014. The 50% requirement increases government's earlier target of 30% by adding another 20% of prime farmland that must be leased to black people.

Any long-term and sustainable approach to advancing a right to water cannot be divorced from the wider origin of freshwater, and from the important role that healthy ecosystems play in ensuring adequate quality and quantity of freshwater for basic human needs. The term 'right to water' therefore does not only refer to the rights of people but also to the needs of the environment with regard to river basins, lakes, aquifers, oceans and ecosystems surrounding watercourses. This is one of the conclusions of an IUCN Environmental Law Programme (ELP) and World Conservation Union paper which looked at the contribution that a human right to water could make to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

South Africa has expanded its experiments with genetically modified potatoes, which will soon be grown in field trials at six secret locations around the country. Anti-GM groups are angry that the field trials are being expanded, as they say the earlier trials were flawed.

Together with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Bank is supporting the development of comprehensive new forestry laws in the Congo, as well as the 'zoning' of the country's entire forest area which would imply the logging of some 60 million hectares of tropical forest. According to the Bank's own estimates, as many as 35 million of the Congo's 50 million people depend on the forests for their very survival. All those people could see their livelihood undermined at the best, or even destroyed.

Community-based natural resource management is an important strategy to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity and wildlife in Namibia, according to this World Bank paper. The authors examine the extent to which conservancies have been successful in meeting their primary goal of improving the lives of rural households. The results suggest that community conservancies have a positive impact on household welfare.

"Tony Hodges's book is the first analytically to link together the various economic and political strands that must be examined in order to provide a plausible account of Angola's post-colonial tragedy." - Patrick Chabal, International Affairs.

In contrast to President Mugabe's declaration of a revival in the Zimbabwean economy as he opened Parliament this week, an opposition movement, Sokwanele, has published its latest article, 'The Politics of Land', in which it attacks the process and effect of the Government's land distribution programme.

Following reports that the Ministry of Land Reform and Resettlement had written to several ministers inquiring about their alleged ownership of more than one farm, the Zimbabwe Government has now announced that none of them were found to. Instead, the Government claims that the Ministry mistakenly assumed that the ministers owned farms which were in fact owned by their close relatives.

Nigeria and Cameroon have exchanged three border villages in the second of a series of moves designed to end a territorial dispute that nearly brought the countries to war. Officials from the United Nations Office for West Africa (UNOWA) said on Wednesday that the green and white striped flag of Nigeria had replaced the green, red and yellow of Cameroon in the villages of Bourha-Wango and Ndabakura, about 200 km south of Lake Chad, on Tuesday.

An eight-country commission to manage and develop the Zambezi river's water resources was launched on Tuesday in the town of Kasane, northern Botswana. The Zambezi Watercourse Commission, comprising Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe will manage one of the largest watercourse systems in the world, covering a basin area measuring over a million square kilometres with a total annual flow estimated at 40,750 million cubic metres.

South Africa will oppose moves by some member countries of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to return to commercial whale hunting, according to Horst Kleinschmidt, deputy director of the Department of Environment Affairs and Tourism. The country will also not support "scientific" whaling, where whales are killed supposedly for scientific research, particularly by Japan.

Fuel represents the most important item of expenditure for poor households, next to food. Yet, the urban poor face limited, inefficient and expensive energy options to meet their heating and lighting needs. Often forced to live in the most polluted neighbourhoods, they suffer most from combustion-related pollution. Failure to meet the energy needs of the urban poor is reducing the prospects of achieving the Millennium Development Goals of environmental sustainability and eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.