A number of small, medium and large commercial farms given to black farmers under Zimbabwe's fast-track land redistribution programme are lying fallow. Visits by IRIN to several provinces - Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland West and Manicaland - revealed that a significant number of the new A2 (commercial) farmers have not been utilising the land allocated to them. Entire farms appeared neglected, with grass growing in fields that were once filled with crops. Farming infrastructure was derelict, suggesting that it had been vandalised.

Agriculture is the most important user of environmental services, including water, forests, pastures, soil and nutrients. Poorly managed agriculture can lead to environmental degradation and pollution, deplete natural resources and compromise food safety and human health. Sustainable agriculture provides environmental services that are important to society in urban and rural areas, locally and globally.

Almost 75% of the world's poorest people (around 3 billion) depend on agriculture, forestry or fisheries to secure their work and household income. Many of the technologies developed to extend agricultural productivity also have beneficial impacts upon human health and well-being. Links between natural resources research and better health for the poor have been constantly under-valued, with limited formal interaction and lesson learning between the two sectors. What can be done to overcome these sectoral divisions in development research and policy?

The northern white rhino, one of the world's most endangered animals, could be extinct in the wild within months unless poaching by Sudanese rebels stops, conservationists said as they launched an urgent appeal for funds. The world's 25 or so remaining wild white rhinos all live in the Garamba National Park, a United Nations World Heritage Site on the northern border of the Democratic Republic of Congo with Sudan.

When the African National Congress took power from the white apartheid government in 1994, it placed land reform at the top of its political agenda and launched an ambitious programme of land restitution, redistribution and security of tenure for farm workers. The restitution programme aimed to address wrongs that dated back to the 1913 Land Act, under which whites were allotted 87 percent of South Africa's land - while the majority blacks were crammed into the remaining 13 percent. According to government officials, some three million hectares have been transferred to 700,000 black households and individuals since the advent of democracy in 1994. This includes land transferred through restitution, redistribution and the allocation of state property, says the Department of Land Affairs.

Kenya's wildlife policy is being reviewed in line with emerging conservation challenges, Environment minister Newton Kulundu has disclosed. The process will culminate in the Wildlife Bill, Kulundu said, and will involve consultations amongst ministry officials, experts and the public. The process, funded by the United States Agency for International Development, will take six months in its initial stages. Kulundu said the current Wildlife Act was outdated and did not address emerging conservation challenges.

More than half of motor fuel now used in Africa is lead-free, according to a World Bank report released at a conference in Nairobi last week. Delegates at the meeting, held by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Bank, heard that 12 African nations have committed to phase out leaded petrol. Nine countries - Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Mauritania, Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda and Sudan - have already switched entirely to unleaded fuel.

Mining is an activity rarely associated with deforestation and forest degradation. Nor is it usually associated with wars, dictatorships and violation of human rights, and even less with the worsening of poverty and social inequity. On the contrary, mining is presented as the paradigm of wealth (in particular when dealing with gold and diamond mining), while its marketing conceals its terrible social and environmental consequences. However, mining is responsible for such impacts and many others, making it one of the most depredatory activities in the world. For these reasons, it has seemed important to give people a tool to enable them to better understand the various aspects of mining activities in relation to social and environmental issues, as a way of encouraging the adoption of an informed position on this issue, leading to a well-founded opposition to face those who present it as a positive activity for the development of the countries of the South.

The Namibian government has taken the first steps in its plan to acquire white-owned farmland. At least three farm owners are reported to have received letters asking them to enter into negotiations for the purchase of their land. Earlier this month President Sam Nujoma said some "racist" farmers had been mistreating their black workers. Namibia has hosted advisers from neighbouring Zimbabwe to help plan the redistribution of farmland.

Most Zimbabweans, even white ones, agree that the land acquisition programme that targeted vast white-owned land for redistribution to landless blacks was vital and long overdue. But the manner in which the government of President Robert Mugabe supervised the haphazard take-over was what threw Zimbabwe into chaos. Mugabe chose to turn a blind eye to the brewing crisis and, riding high on the crest of populism, forcibly took back the vast swathes of land. On a tour of Zimbabwe this week, journalists from the East African Standard came face to face with the victims and beneficiaries of the land take-overs that put Harare at loggerheads with London and the Commonwealth.

The land-redistribution programme is stagnating, with government managing to transfer only one-tenth of the 30% of land earmarked for emerging black farmers over the past six years. Government's failure to fast- track redistribution is highlighted in recent research reports, suggesting that at the current rate it will take 80 years for Land Affairs and Agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza to reach the 30% target. Didiza's department on Friday acknowledged "lack of progress", blaming "bottlenecks in government's bureaucracy, rocketing prices of farmland and budgetary constraints".

As South Africa's new government braces itself for the task of extending clean water supplies to more people, environmentalists are warning there may soon be little water to distribute if conservation efforts are not stepped up. They believe the country will run out of water by 2030 unless current water resources are better maintained. A key part of this challenge involves reclaiming areas known as wetlands. Wetlands act as sponges in preventing the evaporation and flow of water especially during summer.

Kenyans living in areas dotted with the country's world famous wildlife said last Thursday they wanted a larger share of tourism revenue and higher compensation for deaths and destruction of their property by the animals. Tourism is one of Kenya's key foreign exchange earners, providing about 500,000 jobs and contributing about 26 billion shillings (US$328 million) to the economy in 2002. People living in areas frequented by elephants, lions, and wildebeest have lost their lives, property, or livestock to the animals.

Rich countries are pushing to regain momentum in international trade talks, and both Europe and the U.S. have recently offered to be more forthcoming on the issue of agricultural subsidies that was key to the collapse of talks in Cancun last fall. But there is still little sign of openness to African demands for separate and urgent resolution of the cotton issue in particular. "This system [of U.S. cotton subsidies] pits a typical Malian producer, farming two hectares of cotton, who is lucky to gross $400 a year, against US farms which receive a subsidy of $250 per hectare," says Oxfam. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) will soon issue a formal ruling, in response to a Brazilian and African challenge, declaring these U.S. subsidies in violation of international trade rules. This changes the climate for international trade talks, but no policy shifts that could directly affect African farmers are yet imminent, says an edition of the AfricaFocus Bulletin, that contains a press release from Oxfam commenting on the WTO ruling and a summary of an Oxfam report on cotton released in March.

Zambia was offering the first leases on government land to foreign and local farmers, including some from Libya and Zimbabwe, as it tried to diversify the economy, lands minister Judith Kapijimpanga said. An area of 100 000ha in central Zambia would be ready for occupation this year, once roads were constructed and power provided. The land is the first to be put up for lease under a government policy to establish farms in all nine provinces of Zambia, which has faced severe food shortages in the past.

The central Nigerian state of Kwara has agreed to lease farmland to white Zimbabwean commercial farmers who are planning to emigrate to the west African country, according to a government spokesman. "The Zimbabweans were here last week. We held fruitful discussions with them before they left for home. It is true that we have agreed to lease some farmlands to them," state government spokesman Tajudeen Kareem told AFP.

Trash is political. That's the conclusion of a growing number of communities around the world that are examining conventional notions of waste. They are demanding - and winning - rules to reduce waste creation and to mandate safer handling of waste that is generated. A growing global network of activists is opposing incineration of waste, pointing out that incineration releases dioxin, mercury, lead, PCBs and other pollutants that endanger public health. Advocates for non-incineration approaches also emphasize the high cost of incinerators when compared to waste prevention, composting and recycling.

Environmentalists claimed a victory and the death knell for genetically modified crops on Tuesday as U.S. chemical giant Monsanto declared it was giving up on the GM wheat it had hoped would smash consumer resistance. "This is the end of GM. It is the final nail in the coffin," said Tony Juniper, director of green lobby group Friends of the Earth. "I am sure the companies will come back with more proposals in the future but basically the damage is done. I am sure a combination of exporters, farmers, and consumers has finally got the message back to Monsanto that they can't spin this past the people who can see the truth of what is behind these products," he said.

Armed Sudanese rebels have driven the rare northern white rhinos to near extinction after they stepped up poaching in northern Congo, a conservationist said Tuesday. If left unchecked, the rebels could wipe the rhinos out "in a matter of months," said Henri Paul Eloma, the coordinator of a project to protect wildlife from the effects of war in Congo run by the U.N.'s cultural heritage body UNESCO.

African communities are growing mushrooms and harvesting seaweed, water hyacinth and other biological resources that were ignored or considered waste as part of an effort to improve livelihoods and help conserve the environment. The UNDP ZERI regional project on sustainable development from Africa's biodiversity, based at the University of Namibia, is promoting these activities. It is based on the Zero Emissions Research Initiative (ZERI) pioneered at the United Nations University, which has focused on using waste products as raw materials.