Those who led southern African states to independence promised to redress the inequalities of settler colonialism by returning the land to the people. A generation later the rural poor are still waiting. Many lack access and full rights to agricultural land and, as developments in Zimbabwe and South Africa show, they are getting angry. Where did post-independence land reform policy go wrong?

Four men were arrested in Tanzania's commercial capital Dar es Salaam after they were found with 73 elephant tusks, police said on Wednesday. Regional police commissioner Alfred Tibaigana said officers had not yet determined the weight or probable value of the haul.

While children in school are taught that water is continually recycled and that none of it leaves the earth's atmosphere, this does not mean that water is not being rendered unusable or that the planet will not run out of fresh water. By the year 2025, there will be 2.6 billion more people on Earth than there are today. The combination of increasing demand and shrinking supply has attracted the interest of global corporations who want to sell water for a profit. Actions against this trend should be informed by three global principles, says this article in YES magazine. One is water conservation. The second principle is that water is a fundamental human right in that people need water to live. The third principle is water democracy. "We cannot leave the management of our most precious resource in the hands of bureaucrats in government or the private corporations, whether or not they are well intentioned. We, the people, must preserve this special trust, we must fight for it, and we must take our proper role and demand water democracy."

Anglican archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane has added his voice to criticisms of the plan to drive a toll road through the Wild Coast. "While this might benefit through traffic and the trucking industry, we are convinced that it will be to the detriment of the impoverished people of Pondoland," he said in a statement. The Wild Coast was one of the most magnificent and unspoilt coastlines in the world.

Government has been urged to extend its fight against corruption to oil companies where the practice is said to be high. This instead of increasing taxes on minibus operators as a way to boost revenue. Opposition Patriotic Front President Michael Sata says it is unfair for Government to highly tax people at grassroots level instead of fighting corruption in parastatal companies and other government organs.

Balanced above his sea canoe's empty hold, Daouda Wade levels an accusatory finger at four blots on the horizon - factory-sized foreign vessels fishing in the Atlantic off West Africa. "Those big boats have caught everything," the 33-year-old fishing captain says. The European-flagged ships are working in Senegal's waters under a four-year, 64 million-euro (about U.S.$75 million) contract between the European Union and Senegal's government, which says the agreement brings in a steady stream of sorely needed cash. "And now there's nothing left for us, the Africans," Wade says, his 25 sweat-streaked crewmen squatting idly atop unused nets piled in the bottom of the canoe.

Climate change is likely to drive up to a third of the world's plant and animal species to extinction if emissions of greenhouse gases remain unchecked, according to a new analysis of the response of such species to temperature increases. A study in this week's Nature suggests that between 15 and 37 per cent of species could go extinct due to the global warming that is likely to occur between now and 2050.

The Inga Dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been portrayed as a key for NEPAD's future success. But the plan to build the world's largest hydroelectric project on the Congo river which will have the capacity of supplying the current electricity demands of the entire continent is challenged by groups from civil society. They allege that the social promises made at the World Summit in Johannesburg have been betrayed. The Inga project departs from the goal of small-scale sustainable energy projects discussed at the World Summit, where the talk was of bringing electricity to rural people through local wind and solar power projects. Megaprojects like this often imply social, economic and environmental disruption of people's livelihoods, lands and life.

Botswana's democracy is often considered to be a comparatively advanced and positive example of an African state in terms of political culture and the notion of "good governance". Focussing on the particular situation of the Bushmen/San as a marginalized minority denied citizens' rights, this paper challenges the assumption that the country's current political and socio-economic system is, in fact, exemplary. The author has on previous occasions presented and published related analyses within the research network on "Liberation and Democracy in Southern Africa" (LiDeSA), which is currently coordinated through the Nordic Africa Institute. This publication is another result of the collaboration within this project.

The World Social Forum is one of the most significant civil and political initiatives of the past several decades. Since the first WSF was held in Porto Alegre in January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, its call for alternatives, "Another World is Possible!" has been echoing in almost every part of the world. Alternatives that challenge the hegemony of the neoliberal capitalist paradigm of globalisation that seems to have seized the world and got it in its vice-like grip, with profoundly negative effects for a diverse, plural planet. On the eve of the critical fourth World Social Forum gathering to be held in Mumbai, India, in January 2004, The Viveka Foundation announces the first book on the WSF to be published in English from the South, The World Social Forum: Challenging Empires. This committed but critical collection attempts to both comprehensively portray and analyse the richness and depth of the initiative. It not only celebrates but also interrogates the Forum.

The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has given the N2 Wild Coast toll road the go-ahead. Director General Chippy Olver said his authorisation was subject to stringent conditions to ensure the possible negative impact of the road on the environment was minimised. Cathy Kay of the Wildlife and Environment Society of SA, said her organisation would challenge the decision on the basis that 'the whole process was fatally flawed'. She said by giving the road the green light Olver had indirectly sanctioned the mining of heavy minerals on the Wild Coast. Olver has denied the road had anything to do with facilitating mining and his department would remain 'vehemently opposed' to it. Appeals could be lodged with Environmental Affairs And Tourism Minister Valli Moosa within 30 days.

The rate at which Africa is devouring its wildlife is entirely unsustainable, Cameroon's Environment Minister says. He is demanding international action to control the trade, which produces as much as five million tonnes of bushmeat from the Congo basin alone every year.

The Cottonwood Foundation is dedicated to promoting empowerment of people, protection of the environment, and respect for cultural diversity. The foundation focuses its funding on committed, grass roots organisations internationally that rely strongly on volunteer efforts and where foundation support will make a significant difference.

Climate change is responsible for 2.4 per cent of all cases of diarrhoea worldwide and for 2 per cent of all cases of malaria, according to the most recent figures available. Moreover, an estimated 150,000 deaths and 5.5 million Disability-Adjusted Life Years were caused in the year 2000 due to climate change. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and partners are launching a major new study of the health impacts of climate change. The study examines, for example, how weather, air pollution, and water and food contamination affect the way diseases emerge. It further suggests effective means for all countries to monitor and control the health effects of climate change.

Poor people's livelihoods depend on good health, but their home and work environments often threaten their well-being. Environmental risk factors account for 21 per cent of the overall burden of disease worldwide. Research for the UK Department for International Development examines the major risk factors and the strategies available to tackle them.

Do people living in Nigerian villages have clean drinking water? Do they have enough water to meet their daily hygiene requirements? The University of Edinburgh, UK, together with the Federal Polytechnic in Bauchi, Nigeria, looked at the supply of water to people living in rural communities in Taraba State, in eastern Nigeria. Since independence, Nigeria has spent a lot of money on developing water supplies. However there are still many health problems in rural areas due to polluted drinking water and a shortage of water for daily hygiene.

“Yes, Kenyans are celebrating forty years of self-rule, while the Ogiek are remembering the forty years of dispossession and institutional marginalisation of being rendered homeless and a lack of identity in their natural habitat. Safe to say while the majority of Kenyans are yearning for the economic and political recovery, the Ogiek are begging for recognised domicile. The Environment Minister is planning mass eviction, the beneficiaries will go back to their homes of nativity, the Ogiek might be forced to join the street families.” says this statement in support of the Ogiek.

The violence that has engulfed parts of Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta this year is driven by disputes over both government resources and control of the theft of crude oil, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. The 29-page report, “The Warri Crisis: Fuelling Violence,” documents how violence in Nigeria’s southern Delta State this year, especially during the state and federal elections in April and May, resulted in hundreds of deaths, the displacement of thousands of people, and the destruction of hundreds of homes.

A lively illegal trade in ivory is now flourishing in three populous states in West Africa, conservation groups say. They found more ivory in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal than the countries' own elephant populations could produce. They believe much of the ivory their teams found will have come from animals slaughtered by gangs in central Africa.

Two Kenyan fishers land their canoe on the edge of Lake Naivasha, tipping their silver catch on the grass under the eager eyes of their employer. The meagre haul of 20 bass - worth 800 shillings ($10) - is a far cry from what fishers working for Stanley Mungai would have netted a few years back. Mungai, like many living near the shore, blames the environmental impact of 30 or so flower farms that have been set up around the lake in the past decade.