Many tribal people in the Lower Omo Valley in Ethiopia are starving as the region is in the grip of a drought and the river’s annual flood has failed. The Kwegu, a small hunter-gatherer tribe, have been badly hit. Survival has received reports that two Kwegu children and four adults died from hunger in November.

South Africa's land reform minister said on Friday it would be impossible for the government to meet its own target of acquiring farm land to restore to blacks after it was taken from them during apartheid.

A new land deal allowing South African farmers to produce livestock, milk and fruit in Libya has been put on hold pending the finalisation of an investment protection agreement between the two countries. Theo de Jager, Deputy President of South Africa’s largest farmers’ union Agri SA said a protection agreement between the two countries had been drafted.

Western Kenya's Lugari district has long been a maize-growing area. But worsening drought, believed linked to climate change, has made the region's once-reliable staple an increasing risk. "When I planted maize, the rains disappeared when the maize had reached knee height. The whole farm dried up and I had nothing for food. My children could not go to school because I relied on maize as a cash crop also," said Dan Asembo Shaban, a farmer and a father of five.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has recommended that the Endorois tribe in Kenya be given back its land, after they were evicted from it to make way for a nature reserve in the 1970s.

Rwanda will play global host to celebrations for the 2010 World Environment Day, observed annually on 5 June, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has announced.

Uganda's environment is being put at risk by a secret deal between the government and a UK oil firm, a lobby group has said. The pressure group Platform said Tullow Oil had framed a deal with no provision for the environmental or social impact of oil extraction in Uganda.

It’s the largest agricultural investment ever in the West African nation of Sierra Leone—and a Swiss firm is behind it. Addax Bioenergy, based in Geneva, just signed a deal that will allow it to produce 100,000 cubic meters of bioethanol from sugar cane within the next two years alone.

Over the years many Big Ideas have been imposed on Africa from outside. The latest is that the region should sell or lease millions of hectares of land to foreign investors, who will bring resources and up-to-date technology. None of the blueprints has worked, and African farmers have become increasingly impoverished. It is time for Africans to turn to their own histories, knowledge and resources.

Environmental Film Festival of Accra is currently accepting films and videos made about the environment or about issues around the environment throughout the world. We also accept films and videos that explore the relationship between the environment and other socio - economic, political and cultural themes. Whilst we give preference to films about Ghana and Africa, we screen highly acclaimed international films. Films should preferably depict positive and realistic images and can be of any genre - drama, comedy, horror, adventure, animation, romance, science fiction, experimental, etc.

Ethiopia is building a 240-metre high dam on the Omo River that is intended to end the country's electricity shortage and supply power to neighbouring countries. Not everyone's happy.

Hundreds of Bushmen were left angry and frustrated after the Botswana president refused to enter into discussions with them during a meeting on Thursday. President Khama, accompanied by four government ministers, met with Bushmen at the New Xade resettlement camp where they were dumped after being evicted from their lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 2002.

Britain and Ethiopia will head a new United Nations panel that aims to secure $100 billion every year by 2020 to help developing nations cut emissions and adapt to climate change, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said.

Africa needs urgent action on global warming. The consensus position adopted by African leaders ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen failed. African environmental activists are now debating their way forward.

For the Foresight journal’s Special Issue on the theme “Is Africa the land of the future?”, we invite papers that look at the potential conditions and the roles of Africa and Africans in the future world. In addition to the exploration of possible futures, the theme of the Special Issue also calls for considerations for robust policies and creative strategies that could ensure sustained transformation within the African continent.

Communicating why biodiversity loss matters for people is essential for reversing it. The failed UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December could hardly have been a less promising prelude to the International Year of Biodiversity, which opened last month (January).

The Gibe 3 Dam, now under construction on the Omo River in Ethiopia, is already fanning tensions over natural resources, all the way downstream to Kenya. By dramatically changing water flows in the river, the dam will wreak ecological and social havoc for half a million people living downstream of it, including Kenyan communities around Lake Turkana, which gets virtually all of its water flow from the Omo.

When people buy diamond jewellery, they often want to convey love or commitment to someone dear and special. But, this jewellery, if it contains diamonds from the Marange diamond fields in eastern Zimbabwe, could have a bloody past signifying mistreatment and abuse.

A ruling by the African Commission on Human and People's Rights condemning the expulsion of the Endorois people from their land in Kenya is a major victory for indigenous peoples across Africa, Human Rights Watch, WITNESS, and the Endorois' lawyers have said.

The government seeks to create a land bank which businesses and investors can tap into and has sent out a second appeal to Kenyans to offer their property for sale. The move follows investors’ growing appetite for land to build houses, warehouses and put up businesses.