The dramatic, often damaging environmental changes sweeping planet Earth are brought into sharp focus in a new atlas launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The agency’s “One Plant Many People: Atlas of our Changing Environment” compares and contrasts satellite images of the past few decades with contemporary ones, some of which have never been seen before, according to the agency. In addition to images of deforestation, urban sprawl and the retreat of glaciers, the agency says, there are also surprising developments that can be seen from space.

The African Conservation Foundation (ACF) is announcing a unique fundraising campaign with award-winning Canadian painter, Daniel Taylor. The “Art for Africa” project is a partnership to create artwork for wildlife conservation and for educating school children in Africa. Taylor is a world famous painter. He transforms an original portrait into his signature style known as high realism art. High realism is the realist and natural representation of life in a work of art.

United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan has said the world will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) unless environmental planning is incorporated in urban management. And tourism, environment and natural resources deputy minister Nedson Nzowa has expressed sadness that big businesses in Zambia were making huge profits at the expense of protecting the environment.

Elephants are back in South Africa's semi-arid Karoo region for the first time in more than 150 years, adding new life to a harsh environment that saw much of its large wildlife exterminated long ago. The family group of 12 elephants was relocated from South Africa's Kruger National Park to Kuzuko, a 14,500 hectare (35,830 acres) nature reserve on the Karoo's southern boundary.

A South African political party has asked parliament to debate claims that relatives of cabinet members benefited from a controversial oil deal. The Freedom Front said it sought "an urgent debate about apparent conflicts of interest" around the "Oilgate" case. Two weeks ago, the Mail & Guardian newspaper reported that the governing ANC received $2m from a state oil deal. A week later, a firm involved in the purchase won an interdict barring the paper from printing further details.

Kenya last week became the first African country other than South Africa to plant genetically modified (GM) maize in open fields. The seeds, modified to resist insect pests called stem borers, were planted in the first in a series of confined field trials at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) station in Kiboko on Friday (27 May).

Swaziland now has a national enforcement agency to ensure that its environmental laws are implemented: the kingdom, known for its lush forests, this week reconstituted the Swaziland Environmental Authority (SEA) and equipped it with some teeth. "The previous board did not have the power to take action against offenders - we do not want to close down businesses, we only want them to comply with environmental regulations," said Minister of Environment and Tourism Thandi Shongwe.

International debt payments are draining poor countries of resources desperately needed to address health, education and many other pressing needs. After years of offering nothing more than half-hearted measures and worse, the rich countries have agreed to cancel the debts of the poorest nations to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. But they continue to differ over how to do it.

The lure of gold has fuelled massive human rights atrocities in the northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch said in a new report published this week.  Local warlords and international companies are among those benefiting from access to gold rich areas while local people suffer from ethnic slaughter, torture and rape. The 159-page report, "The Curse of Gold," documents how local armed groups fighting for the control of gold mines and trading routes have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity using the profits from gold to fund their activities and buy weapons.  The report provides details of how a leading gold mining company, AngloGold Ashanti, part of the international mining conglomerate Anglo American, developed links with one murderous armed group, the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI), helping them to access the gold-rich mining site around the town of Mongbwalu in the northeastern Ituri district.

Fears that the G8 summit in Gleneagles this July will lack the political will to tackle global warming have increased, following the publication of a document purporting to be a draft G8 communiqué on climate change. Friends of the Earth International said that the leaked document was "far too weak, ineffective and lacks urgency". British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has promised to put climate change at the top of the international agenda at this year's G8 summit, which will be chaired by the UK.

Despite claims that Bt cotton will catapult African farmers out of poverty, recent reports revealed that the majority of Bt small-scale cotton farmers on the Makhathini Flats in South Africa have stopped planting Bt cotton because they cannot repay their debts. A five year study by Biowatch South Africa, has shown that small-scale cotton farmers in Northern KwaZulu Natal have not benefited from Bt cotton and that the hype surrounding this case is just that - a media hype created by American biotechnology companies to try and convince the rest of Africa why they should approve genetically modified crops. A summary of this study has just been published in GRAIN's quarterly magazine, Seedling (available at http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=330).

For many people, Kenya is defined by the endless grasslands of the Masai Mara, herds of wildebeest and accompanying predators. It may surprise them to know, then, that the country is also home to 1.7 million hectares of indigenous forest - and that this land is under threat. ”There is great loss of biodiversity, especially in forests where people are using (land) for settlement, agriculture or other activities,” Parkinson Ndonye, a senior researcher at the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA), told IPS.

Thousands of Ogoni and members of other minority communities have been evicted from their homes in a Port Harcourt shantytown. The Rivers State government and the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) are accused by the communities of demolishing their waterfront homes to facilitate planned company expansion and relocation from Lagos to Port Harcourt waterside, without notice or compensation. Some residents have suffered a second displacement since they were living in the shantytown following earlier destruction of their village homes due to military activities in Ogoni territories.

Tanzania said on Monday it will end a contract with two European-based water and sewerage companies, in a blow to a privatisation plan some saw as an African test case. Tanzania said it was cancelling its contract with City Water Services, a partnership between Britain's Biwater, Germany's HP Gauff and a Tanzanian partner, because of non-performance under a 10-year contract.

Marauding elephants continue to cause havoc in northern Tanzania, where they have destroyed 80 hectares of crops and disrupted learning for children who now have to be escorted to school, an official told IRIN on Monday. "Some parents are even afraid to escort their children for treatment in clinics for fear of encountering the animals," said Anthony Malley, the district commissioner for Monduli, northwest of the region's main town, Arusha.

Arlindo Carvalho has resigned as Minister of Natural Resources of the tiny island state of Sao Tome and Principe amid allegations of irregular procedure and high-level corruption in the award of offshore oil exploration rights. This row is continuing to delay the award of fresh acreage in offshore waters shared with Nigeria.

Hundreds of thousands of Dar es Salaam residents could continue to experience acute water shortages if a row between the Tanzanian government and a private international water company remains unresolved. The government announced on Friday it had terminated a 10-year contract with City Water, for what it described as "poor performance". The firm had been contracted to provide water to the estimated three million residents of the city and its neighbouring districts of Kibaha and Bagamoyo.

Biodiversity within inland water ecosystems in Eastern Africa is both highly diverse and of great regional importance to livelihoods and economies. However, development activities are not always compatible with the conservation of this diversity and it is poorly represented in the development planning process. This document provides the background, assessment methodology, results, and conclusions and discussions on the IUCN/SSC Freshwater Biodiversity Assessment Programme, which aimed to eliminate the information bottleneck for effective biodiversity conservation and livelihood protection in the inland waters of Eastern Africa.

Governments including Japan, Korea, Mexico and the United States are planning to use new World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations to dismantle a wide range of national laws protecting the environment, social well-being and health, Friends of the Earth International has revealed. A list compiled by the environmental group before trade negotiators met in Geneva in April showed that legislation covering food, fisheries, timber and petroleum production, energy efficiency, chemical testing, recycling and standards in the electronics and automobile industries have all been raised as potential "barriers to trade" in the past few months.

The rising temperatures and recurrent dry spells in Southern Africa points to the impact of climate change and are "cause for concern", a senior scientist told IRIN. Many countries in the region, such as Swaziland and Lesotho, were now entering their fourth year of drought. According to a new Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report, the 2004/05 season "has been marked by adverse conditions, including erratic rains, intermittent dry spells, and flooding in some areas".