A project that uses the latest mobile telephone tracking equipment in elephant conservation has been launched. The equipment uses mobile provider Safaricom's Global System for Mobile Communication technology. The tracking technology, jointly run by Safaricom and Save the Elephants – a local wildlife conservation organisation – will provide more accurate information on areas suitable for reintroduction of wild animals and their movements.

As Zimbabwe marks the fourth anniversary of its controversial land redistribution programme, there is widespread concern about the impact this is having on the country's environment. Many of the peasant farmers who were resettled on land forcibly acquired from white owners lack funds to buy the seed, fertilizer and tools needed to produce a crop. This, combined with poor rains in parts of Zimbabwe, has prompted some peasant farmers to start harvesting other resources instead.

"Forestry needs to be fully integrated with other sectors in policy development, particularly agriculture", according to FAO Assistant Director-General, Forestry Department, Hosny El-Lakany. El-Lakany underlined the need "to end the isolation of forestry from mainstream development initiatives." The importance of forests in alleviating poverty and protecting the environment is increasingly being recognized, yet deforestation and forest degradation are continuing at an alarming rate, Mr. El-Lakany said.

The directorate of disease control has warned that threatened countrywide water cuts by the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA), could result in the spread of diseases like cholera. ZINWA, a parastatal charged with managing and distributing water, has threatened to disconnect supplies to councils in a bid to recover a soaring collective debt estimated at around Zim $200,000,000 (US $50,000).

After decades of decline, malaria has been on the rise in many parts of Africa - an estimateby the World Health Organisation is that, in some parts of the continent, malaria mortality in young children almost doubled from the 1980s to the 1990s. The disease causes some 3,000 deaths each day and imposes huge losses in economic productivity. Is this resurgence a sign of increased transmission caused by climate change? Probably not, according to results presented by in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which conclude that future climate change will not affect transmission.

In a letter to the Registrar of Genetically Modified Organisms, the South African Council of Churches and 38 other civil society organisations opposed the granting of a commodity clearance permit that would allow the US chemical firm Monsanto to import genetically modified (GM) wheat into South Africa. Noting the lack of conclusive studies of the impact of GM crops on human and environmental health, the letter said: “We do not believe South Africa should be the first country to take the risk to allow GM wheat (seeds or seeds for milling) if the social, environmental and economic impact is of such concern to the rest of the world.”

The South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) developed three possible initiatives that it considers value adding to the SADC Water Sector’s RSAP, and aligned it with SADC’s vision of creating an enabling environment within which water and sanitation infrastructure development can take place, namely:
· Best Practice in the Water and Sanitation Sector rollout to SADC;
· Capacity Building of NGO/CBO in Water and Sanitation Sector in SADC;
· Capacity Building of technicians, technologists and professionals in Water & Sanitation Sector in SADC.
At a meeting on 02 December 2003, with the SADC Water Division in Gaborone, Botswana, the SADC Water Division advised that the Capacity Building of NGO/CBO would fall under RSAP Project AAA.25 and link up with AAA.22; of the SADC Projects.
SA DWAF has taken the initiative to commence with the implementation of the 3 proposals, for an interim period ending the 31st of March 2004, and funded from the SA DWAF budget for this period. DWAF will align the initiatives with the current projects within the RSAP, with the main purpose of being able to incorporate these three proposals into the RSAP after the 31st of March 2004.
One of the activities of the NGO Capacity Building Project is the development of a comprehensive database of NGOs working in the water and sanitation sector of the 14 SADC countries. (Angola, Botswana, Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe)
If you can assist with contact details / a database / references/ links or networks, that can help in the identification of these NGOs, it will be much appreciated.
Contact: Chamara Pansegrouw: Project Coordinator ([email protected])
Tel/Fax: +27 012 335 6761
P O Box 54131, Nina Park, 0156, Pretoria, South Africa

The Zimbabwe government has suspended the acqusition of farms and the issuing of further land offer letters in a move it says is aimed at cleaning up confusion in the land reform exercise. John Nkomo, special affairs minister responsible for the land reform programme, said in interviews published in local newspapers that he would also investigate compliance with the government's one-man one-farm policy.

Namibia's land reform programme has not addressed the crucial issue of security of tenure for farmworkers. Secretary-general of the National Farmworkers Union (NFU), Alfred Angula, said the drafters of the Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act missed an opportunity to enshrine security of tenure for farmworkers.

Africa is being swamped by a growing tide of toxic metal pollution at a time when many governments continue to treat the environment as a "non-issue", a health researcher from the University of Michigan warned in Durban on Monday. Speaking at the World Congress on Environmental Health, which opened in the city this week, Professor Jerome Nriagu said growing quantities of metals were being discharged throughout Africa.

South Africa's Cape Flats area is awash with drugs and violent gangs, but amid the despair is a window into the dusty landscape's former ecological glory. "Our story will blow you away," Zwai Peter said proudly, looking out at the "fynbos" - rare flowers unique to the region - and the chattering birds in the heart of Cape Town's ganglands. The Edith Stephens Wetland Park is a haven for some of the rarest plant and animal life in the world and has become a source of pride for the people of neighbouring Manenberg.

Eighteen mountain bongo antelopes, a critically endangered species, arrived safely in Mt. Kenya National Park last month from the United States via a special plane through an unprecedented international partnership that hinges on local communities. The wild bongo population was decimated by unrestricted hunting and poaching and lions, and the last sighting was nine years ago. The goal is to re-establish the bongos, bred in captivity in the US, in their species' native habitat, now a World Heritage Site.

Oil is bringing big changes to Chad, some cultural, others ambitious and practical, like the way the World Bank has staked its reputation on making sure that Chad manages its new wealth prudently. For Chad, among the poorest countries on earth, is now Africa's newest petrostate. Its $3.7 billion underground pipeline, stretching about 1,080 kilometres, or 670 miles, began ferrying crude through the forests of neighbouring Cameroon and to the Atlantic coast last year. It is the largest single private investment in Africa.

Across all of the major farming systems in Africa, the need to integrate livelihood needs with biodiversity conservation is becoming a necessity for sustaining productivity, particularly on small-holder farms that dominate rural areas. In the mountain regions of Eastern and Central Africa, land use pressure on fragile ecosystems has led to severe degradation, exposed thousands of poor farmers to food insecurity, and posed a significant threat to native species and habitats. How Africa utilises its resources for development is what will define its ultimate survival. The consequences of a strained environment have manifested themselves in food shortages, conflicts over use of resources, depletion of forest cover, and drought.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has called for the urgent restoration of public services in Liberia's shattered towns and cities to reduce pollution and improve public health. In its first proper post-conflict assessment report in Africa, UNEP also called for tight controls on logging, which has removed vast swathes of forest cover, and poaching, which has seriously endangered the country's rich wildlife.

Nigeria's Niger Delta region is one of the largest wetlands in the world. It is a source of great irony, therefore, that people living in the area struggle to get hold of clean drinking water: they take what they can from creeks and rivers. "To drink water in this village is a problem for us. As you come here now, we can't give you the water to drink; if we give it to you we are poisoning you,” says Daniel Akpere of Okuokolo village.

At this time when the Government is restructuring the country for economic recovery and creation of employment and wealth, the importance of land as a primary economic resource and the basis of livelihood for the people should not be ignored. The only way to jump-start the economy is by ensuring that land is held, used and managed in an equitable, efficient, productive and able manner for the benefit of all. Land is the most crucial element defining our life as a nation, as it does not only give people cultural identity, but also nourishes their spiritual life. It provides the foundation of shelter, food and labour, hence, it is fundamental to any strategy for poverty reduction.

The world is slipping behind a U.N. goal of supplying fresh water by 2015 to more than a half-billion people in developing nations who currently lack it, the head of a U.N. Commission said Tuesday. Governments agreed at a 2002 Earth Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, to work out by next year national plans for halving the proportion of people with no access to fresh water by 2015, now 1.2 billion people, or one in five of the world population. "These plans will not be in place in all countries by 2005," said Boerge Brende, chairman of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development which follows up the Johannesburg goals.

Mary Waweru, a kindergarten teacher in Nairobi's sprawling Kawangware slums, has noticed that some of her pupils are increasingly absent from school due to ill health. Some of the young children have already been orphaned, being supported by charity organisations. Waweru has begun to suspect that these frequently absent pupils could be suffering from AIDS, which she thinks may have been passed on to them by their parents before they were born.

Encouraging local producers to form co-operative groups has been an important part of development policy in Africa. Such co-operative projects can help to reduce poverty in remote areas and give members greater control over their livelihoods. However, the benefits may be short-term. A paper from the University of Middlesex draws on a survey of isolated regions of Ghana to assess the usefulness of producer’s co-operatives. The author found many examples of farmers working together without external support to negotiate prices with traders and to maintain roads required to get to markets. Trust and respect for rules are most apparent in areas where the authority of traditional chiefs and elders remains un-contested. Building trust and co-operation, the report argues, is a long-term process dependent on members being given the time and space to develop and enforce simple and flexible rules.