The traditional way of life of 20 000 people living in the rainforests of the south-westerly Dzanga Sangha national park in the Central African Republic is being threatened by an influx of loggers. "People are seeing their habitat diminished by logging companies, which is leading to a decline in animal populations, but the government wants to log and conserve at the same time," says the park director, Etienne Bemba.

Ten tonnes of African bushmeat may be reaching London every day, according to a British film on the trade. It says the extent of the killing has already left some countries with few animals to poach.The effort to save the great apes, it says, now stands at one second to midnight. Yet corruption, inertia and sheer poverty allow all-out, unsustainable slaughter to continue apace. The film, No Hiding Place, made by Television Trust for the Environment (TVE), is shown in its Earth Report series on BBC World.

THE Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) has banned two wild animal exporting companies over permit fraud. The cancellation of the licences follows investigations into cases of altering permits and fraudulent exportation of thousands of reptiles.

The Tanzanian government has charged two environmental activists and an opposition political leader with sedition for speaking out about allegations of widespread human rights abuses at a World Bank Group guaranteed gold mine. Please take 15 minutes to send a short fax to World Bank Group President James Wolfensohn.

The Kenyan government and the World Food Programme (WFP) have jointly sent emergency food aid to some 47,000 residents of Tana River District, eastern Kenya, who have been cut off by heavy rains that have caused flooding in western and eastern parts of the country in the past few weeks. A road convoy carrying relief food left the north-eastern Kenyan town of Garissa on Monday under military escort, heading for Ijara division, Tana River District, where some 40,000 residents were in urgent need of emergency relief, a humanitarian source in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN on Monday.

Negotiators hunkered down in Indonesia on Monday, trying to bridge differences and agree to a plan for a U.N. summit that aims to drag millions out of poverty while protecting the environment. Critics have predicted the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August would be a flop unless the current Bali meeting revamped a draft agenda, which they say doesn't go far enough to help the world's 1.2 billion people living in poverty.

Global environmental watch-dogs have launched an inquiry into an alleged plot to export wild gorillas from Nigeria to Malaysia using a false permit and in defiance of international agreements on the sale of rare animals.

The Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is coordinating a multifaceted programme to mark World Environment Day, which fell on Wednesday, by "contributing to the healing of the ailing planet". In one initiative, some 6,500 indigenous trees are to be planted in an environmentally damaged part of the Aberdare Mountains, which is intended to help restore the health of local rivers, retain moisture in the land and stabilise soils.

Privatising the Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority (DAWASA) was one of the conditions given Tanzania to receive the HIPC debt relief. Now, the government has raised a credit to fund the US$145 million upgrade of DAWASA, needed to sell off the company at a lower price. Concerns are the privatisation will produce higher water bills or even become another corruption trap.

South Africa's hunting industry has boomed into an R800-million per year foreign exchange earner, the Bosveld Hunters' Association announced this week. Association chairman Fred Mulders said on Thursday that more than 300 000 foreigners flock to Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape and North West province every year for the winter hunting season.

UN agencies, NGOs, refugees and local communities have joined hands in an effort to protect and rehabilitate the environment in southern Guinea, but participants say available resources fall short of actual needs.

This e-conference starts from the position that communities cannot be left with the full responsibility for managing their water supply systems. They need support: long-term, continuous and appropriate support to keep their systems working. What is more, we cannot be satisfied with occasional islands of success. We need to at least aim for 100% coverage. Community management needs to be scaled up. The electronic conference - entitled “Beyond the Community” will take place from 3 June – 28 June 2002.

Two decades of war left Mozambique littered with land mines. One study by the Canadian De-mining Institute estimates that there are approximately two million land mines, covering 70 percent of Mozambique's territory. The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies puts the number at three million. The experience Mozambique has gained trying to remove these deadly reminders of war means Mozambique probably has some of "the most capable de-miners in the world," according to Donald F. Patierno, Director of the State Department's Office of Humanitarian De-mining Programs.

Ethiopia is in imminent danger of losing its rare wildlife, the national Institute of Biodiversity Conservation and Research (ICBR) has warned. At least four mammals and two bird species are facing extinction, the Ethiopian-based wildlife institute said. According to experts the Walia ibex, Ethiopian wolf, mountain nyala and Grevy zebras as well as the white-winged fluff tail and Ankober Serin bird species are all threatened.

A Bill aimed at curbing the destruction of forests will soon be presented to Parliament. Environment and Natural Resources Minister Joseph Kamotho said the Bill is aimed at rectifying mistakes experienced in the past concerning forest allocations and their destruction. "This is a Government plan to ensure that our forests, and by extension the environment, are given priority. We are serious about the issue and want to ensure that parameters to safeguard it are in place."

Four-wheel drive enthusiasts are gunning their engines in preparation for a race through the Kenyan bush beginning on June 1 and known as the Rhino Charge. But the event is not only about bush-bashing and aims to raise funds for the Aberdare Conservation Area in central Kenya, home to several thousand elephants, buffalo, leopard, forest hogs, and one of the last remaining strongholds of the black rhino, poached mercilessly for its horn in the 1980s. The Aberdare mountain range is also home to more than a million farmers who use its rich soils and rainfall to grow 70 percent of Kenya's coffee and 30 percent of its tea. Rhino Charge set out to raise money to build a 200-mile, game-proof fence around the entire Aberdare Conservation Area, intended to keep poachers out and animals, who were threatening crops close by, in.

The United Nations on Monday opened a vital meeting in Indonesia where 6,000 delegates will try to bridge differences before an August summit that aims to cut poverty while saving the environment. Some officials fear the World Summit on Sustainable Development, opening in South Africa in August and dubbed Earth Summit 2, will be a failure unless talks on Indonesia's resort island of Bali achieve clear commitments. "The players are a very long way apart in terms of reaching any significant agreement," said Ian Willmore, senior press officer from Friends of the Earth. "If (Bali) doesn't work, then it means the Earth Summit won't work. In a nutshell, the U.S. wants ... to avoid signing up to binding international agreements on quite a wide range of areas on which other people might want to see progress."

Zambian police recently arrested 39 people protesting against the rape and strangling to death of four young girls in the last year. The 39 men and women, who are members of the Non Governmental Organisations' Coordinating Committee(NGOCC), were charged with unlawful assembly and later appeared in court. They include NGOCC’s Chairperson, Inonge Wina, and the Vice-Chairperson, Petronella Chisanga.

Medecins Sans Frontieres(MSF) has told the UN Security Council that the humanitarian needs of citizens in the Mano River Union should prevail over the political ambitions of the international community in the region. MSF official Martha Carey says that her agency is concerned about people living in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone because "the political agenda of the international community was significantly undermining the humanitarian needs of the people".

Friends of the Earth International accuses governments of failing to set
social and ecological limits to economic globalisation. Instead of using the Earth Summit to respond to the global concern over deregulation and liberalisation, governments seem hell-bent on rebranding the WTO's free trade agenda as sustainable development.