Investors and likely partner organisations are asked to please contact Terry Harnwell through the email address provided to describe their interest in becoming involved in a brand new conservation project in northern Tanzania. 1200 Acres of virgin bush on the borders of Tarangire National Park (in the Manyara-Tarangire migration corridor) have been acquired to set up the project. Project will comprise a Carnivore Rescue & Rehab Centre, Educational Facility, Research Facility and adjoining Lodge.

As the clock ticks closer to a sell-off of ivory stocks in Southern Africa, questions are being asked about why Malawi's legislation has not yet been strengthened to meet the dangers posed by elephant poaching. In 2002, delegates to a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) agreed to a one-off sale of ivory stocks by Botswana, Namibia and South Africa after May this year. Although Malawi will not partake in the 2004 sell-off - also intended to finance conservation - there are fears that the country's laws are too weak to prevent poachers from trying to cash in on the sale. Environmental analysts say the National Parks and Wildlife Act needs to be reviewed so that penalties for illegal ivory trading are brought in line with the gravity of the offence.

Zimbabwe's parliament passed a controversial land law on Wednesday that will allow the government to take land more easily from white farmers, the state news agency ZIANA reported. The new law allows the government to compulsorily acquire white-owned farms only after publishing a notice of intention to take over in the Government Gazette, scrapping the old requirement that a preliminary notice of acquisition by the government should be served personally on the farm owner.

The controversial Communal Land Rights Bill was passed unanimously by parliament's committee on land, but gender and land rights activists have vowed to step up their fight against it. Preparation of constitutional challenges to the Bill's provisions on Tuesday shifted into top gear, after the committee adopted the Bill, which gives traditional leaders more power than ever in communal areas, including the allocation of individual land transfers. The adoption confirmed fears expressed last week by activists that the Bill would be bulldozed through parliament as an election sop to chiefs.

Thirty poachers from Queen Elizabeth National Park have surrendered to Uganda Wildlife Authorities (UWA). Chief warden of Queen Elizabeth protected area, John Bosco Nuwe, said armed poaching had greatly reduced in the park. He said this was the third batch of poachers to surrender since last May.

Kenya is losing 19,000 hectares of forests each year. Environment minister Newton Kulundu said forest cover had drastically decreased over the last 20 years to 1.7 per cent. New technology was required in forest management to reduce destruction, he told a workshop on tree biotechnology in Nairobi. "We need to increase our forest acreage to enable us to benefit fully from the trees," he said. More than 80 per cent of the population depended on forests for fuel and the cover should be increased if the supply is to be sustained.

West African environment ministers have called on the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) to use protected areas of land known as 'biosphere reserves' as 'laboratories for sustainable development'. In a declaration issued at a meeting in Paris on 26 January, the ministers said that they were committed to promoting the use of biosphere reserves as "operational sites for sustainable development in the fight against poverty".

Officials at the heart of the Goldenberg inquiry stand accused of taking bribes of up to one million shillings from key players in the scandal. The bribes were offered by people anxious to influence the outcome of the inquiry by tilting evidence yet to be heard, sources said last night. The dramatic claims of corruption brought the inquiry to a sudden halt in its 133rd day as the commission announced a one-week adjournment.

African countries are coming under increasing pressure from international seed companies to embrace genetically modified (GM) foods, say South Africa's anti-GM lobby. "Africa is the last chance for the GM seed companies and that's why they're pushing so hard. The European market has closed for these companies - as we've seen with [American GM seed giant] Monsanto pulling out of the European cereal market - so they are looking to Africa," says Glenn Ashton of SAFeAGE (South African Freeze Alliance for Genetic Engineering).

An oil-spill and ongoing fire in the troubled Niger delta region of Nigeria indicates how badly relations between international oil-companies like Shell and oil-producing communities have deteriorated.

Members of the Elikpokwuodu community in Rukpokwu in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, say a rupture in a high-pressure, 28-inch pipeline operated by SPDC (Shell's Nigeria affiliate) in December caused the initial oil-spill. The problem with the pipe dates back to 1963, according to the community.

Rukpokwu is about a 5-10 minute drive from the Port Harcourt airport. The oil-spill is on the fringe of a swampy area, 2km along a dirt road, immediately off the airport road on the outer fringes of the oil-city of Port Harcourt proper. Port Harcourt is Shell's operational base in Rivers State. In other words, the spill is on Shell's doorstep but the company has still to put out the fire and clean up the spill.

According to Nigeria's Vanguard newspaper, Chairman of Elikpokwuodu's Community Development Committee Mr. Clifford Walter said "more than three streams from which we fish are affected. Fishing implements were destroyed and SPDC has not responded to this disaster."

"Our only source of drinking water, fishing stream and farm-lands covering over 300 hectares of land with aquatic lives, fishing nets and traps, farm crops and animals," Nigeria's THISDAY reported the Paramount ruler and Chairman of Mgbuchi Community - Chief Clifford E Enyinda and Azunda Aaron respectively - as saying. "Trees worth several billions of naira are completely destroyed by the spillage and was made worst by the three separate fires that broke out of the spill site."

At the time of Stakeholder Democracy Network's (SDN) visit to the site on January 7th, there was a fire at the centre of the spill that was still burning. This was despite several attempts by Shell staff to put this out. The fire was restricted to an area no larger than approximately 20 metres by 20 metres. Surrounding bush and vegetation was charred and destroyed. No visible measures were in place to prevent the further spread of oil downstream, despite obvious risks from rainfall.

There appears to be a continuing underground fire at the spill-site that is periodically re-igniting on the surface, but the causes of this re-ignition are unclear: it could be that the underground fire is spreading back to the surface, but deliberate sabotage cannot be discounted. Shell has been unwilling - or has felt unable - to post someone at the site to monitor the fire, which would make sabotage less likely.

Shell and the affected community are giving conflicting accounts of what has happened. However, one uncontested fact is that - while the initial spill occurred on December 3rd 2003, and was reported to Shell on December 4th - on January 7th Shell was still negotiating 'relief materials' with the Elikpokwuodu community, i.e.: how many bags of rice and temporary water supplies to supply.

According to members of the community SDN spoke to, when Shell staff and contractors visited, they came with an armed mobile-police escort, firing shots into the air. Shell staff excavated the pipeline, acknowledged that the problem was due to corrosion and sought to place a covering clamp over the pipeline. However, Shell workers found the 'clamp' they had brought was not long enough, so they departed without taking further action.

According to Shell press statements, the community denied Shell access to the site of the spill. Shell alleges that "miscreants" set fire to the spill initially, and have re-lit the fire on several subsequent occasions.

Members of the community seized a Shell vehicle that was being used to fight the fire last week. There are indications the vehicle may be released this week, following three-way discussions between the community, the local authorities and Shell.

Roseline Konya, the Rivers State commissioner for environment, had previously made public criticisms of Shell over the Rukpokwu spill. The government would insist on Shell paying adequate compensation to the community, she said. "We also see negligence, delay and lack of good-will from Shell on this matter," Konya told reporters in Port Harcourt according to Dow Jones on January 9th.

This incident is the latest indication that the 'system' for dealing with spill-response is broken. From the perspective of communities and local human rights groups, this is seen as further evidence of Shell's overall attitude to dealing with these incidents: at their own convenience. There is a perceived double standard. Would Shell respond this way to a spill in Scotland or in Texas?

The incident comes at a time when Nigeria is becoming an increasingly important test of the claims of oil companies like Shell to transparency and Corporate Social Responsibility (or CSR, to give it the acronym favoured by policy wonks in Europe and America.) Shell's senior management is coming under pressure from its shareholders to sort out its Nigerian operations.

Shell announced in mid-January 2004 that 3.9 billion barrels of oil and gas, or one-fifth of its reserves, were no longer 'proved' - meaning they can't be retrieved as quickly as thought - much of which are in Nigeria, which is crucial to Shell's over-all operations. Shell's shares have dropped from 401p to 359p following the announcement.

Shell has so-far failed to explain the sudden re-grading of its reserves to angry shareholders, but shut-downs, spills and community conflicts are likely to be one major factor making it difficult for Shell to guarantee its supplies in the delta. Is this a failure of corporate governance generally, or of Shell's approach to "CSR" and community-relations in places like the Niger delta? Shell investors must wait for a presentation on 5th February for an explanation by chairman Sir Philip Watts, but they had earlier called for the resignation of the man who used to run Shell's Nigeria operations.

The debate on the merits of Shell's CSR claims rages on in developed countries, but in Nigeria the standard responses from all sides - oil companies like Shell, and oil-producer communities - involved in a spill like Rukpokwu seems to be producing the perverse outcome of delaying spill-containment.

There are also good reasons to question whether third-parties to spills, like clean-up operators - the main financial beneficiaries of oil-spills in the short run outside of the affected communities - share an interest with community leaders and activists in minimising the impacts of a spill on the environment, and public health and safety.

For its part, Shell's knee-jerk response to 'sabotage' - which has the effect of delaying spill-responses - is fuelling a lack of trust and sense of general grievance in oil-producing communities.

There is growing concern that the frustration felt by oil-producing communities at the failure of the oil-industry to deal with spills quickly and adequately is combining with general political instability in the region, with possibly calamitous results.

"Ethnic conflicts" rage over land in the oil-producing Warri region - to the north of Port Harcourt - which in reality are also part of a wider war between criminal groups and factions in the army, navy and government for control of black-market oil and a host of other related issues.

Following elections in 2003 that were criticised by international observers as unfair, resentment is simmering in the delta. The oil industry extracts billions of dollars-worth of oil from the impoverished region, but the Nigerian government returns a tiny fraction of this to the producer-communities. Much of this disappears through bribery of government officials. Groups like Transparency International routinely rate Nigeria as one of the world's most corrupt countries.

In the Niger delta, local conflicts are combining with a general sense of political and economic disenfranchisement to make a highly combustible mixture. The oil companies must share part of the blame for creating this volatile situation, through their environmental management. The creeks and inlets of the Niger delta are threaded with a network of pipelines, many of which pre-date Shell and other companies' operations in the 1970s. The age and general state of deterioration of pipelines will become a significant issue in the delta more widely, if oil-producing communities' frustration over continuing spills like Rukpokwu build up.

* Tim Concannon is with the Stakeholder Democracy Network

* Please send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa - to

Dates for the land claims court's restitution hearing between the Richtersveld community, state-owned diamond mining firm Alexkor and the government had been set for the three weeks between May 3 and May 21, the community's legal representative says. In October, the constitutional court ruled that the Richtersveld community had a valid claim to the surface and mineral rights of most of the diamond-rich west coast strip along the Orange River from Port Nolloth to Alexander Bay, from which it had been forcibly removed in the 1920s.

Food insecurity is still an issue in post-war Angola, but farmers who have been able to return to their fields are beginning to see results after nearly two years of peace. One success story is the farming association Hua Kinga-mbote Kadissuku ("The one who waits for the good never stumbles" in the local language, Kimbundu) in the northern province of Malanje, led by a charismatic and powerful woman, Maria de Fatima Coimbra. "One year ago we were desperately running toward visitors asking for food. Now we greet them with smiles. We dance and clap our hands," she told IRIN.

This paper from the International Food Policy Research Institute examines the effectiveness of the 'conservation farming (CF) system', a package of agronomic practices for smallholders introduced to Zambia in 1996 and advocated by a range of stakeholders from donors, government and private sector. Evidence suggests that the effectiveness of conservation farming will vary not only across regions but also across crops and over time. Therefore, it will be important to establish long-term monitoring efforts for conservation farming and control plots across a broad range of geographic settings, crops and seasons.

Kenya's Maasai people, who depend on tourists visiting the Maasai Mara game park, are facing big challenges after a dramatic fall in wildlife numbers. Visitors were already staying away due to fears of terror attacks, poor infrastructure and bad land management. In the last 10 years, poaching, population growth and overgrazing have led to a 43% fall in the amount of wildlife found in the buffer zones. Conservationists say changes are needed, but it is going to take a fundamental shift in the thinking of the local people.

A new census of gorilla populations in the national parks of three countries in Central Africa has shown a surprise increase in numbers. The survey suggests the number of mountain gorillas has risen by 17% since 1989, despite insecurity and the threat from poachers.

Farmers in developing countries are switching to genetically modified (GM) crops at more than twice the rate of farmers in the industrialised world, according to a new survey. Last year, the amount of land planted with GM crops in developing countries grew by 4.4 million hectares, or 28 per cent. In comparison, the rate of growth in industrialised countries was 11 per cent.

Elephants and humans have long found themselves at loggerheads in Africa, and Malawi is no exception to this trend. Communities in the southern Machinga and Balaka districts near Liwonde National Park have seen their crops destroyed by elephants, while some people have been trampled to death. This led to the construction of a perimeter fence around the 538 square kilometre park in the early 1990's. But, villagers are also exploring a more innovative way of keeping the elephants at bay: the planting of chilli pepper plants. Speaking from Liwonde National Park, Mathias Elisa - a Parks and Wildlife Department official who is responsible for education - said: "Observations conducted during chilli production revealed that elephants keep diverting from areas where the...production is being done. Elephants hate the smell of chilli, especially when the stems have been burnt. It appears they...distance themselves from where the chilli is growing,” he added.

Rains have improved the situation in eastern Ethiopia’s drought-stricken Somali region, but fears remain of major water and food shortages, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its monthly report, issued on Tuesday. It warned that a "critical situation seems imminent" during the early months of 2004.

President Thabo Mbeki will this week sign into law amendments to the Restitution of Land Rights Bill that have reinvigorated the debate on the pace of land reform and the emotive issue of property rights. The amendments give the minister of agriculture the power to expropriate land without a court order for the purposes of land reform.

"We are the people who have borne the brunt of colonialism and neo-colonialism, of the invasion of our land by the wealthy countries of the world, of the theft of our natural resources, and of forced labour for the colonists." These are the opening words of the Landless People's Charter, the guiding document of the Landless People's Movement published shortly after the 23-24 July 2001 meeting of landless people that gave birth to the first national movement of poor and landless people since the Industrial and Commercial Union of the 1920s. These words also echo the statement of poor and landless people who attended the first post-apartheid gathering of the landless, the Community Land Conference in 1994, which aimed to provide guidance to the new government on ways to meet the needs of our country's poor and landless majority. Unfortunately, the voices of the poor and landless were not heard in 1994, and the private property clause was adopted to protect the colonial and apartheid grid of white property rights.