Three Rwandan poachers convicted of killing two endangered mountain gorillas and stealing a baby one have been fined and sentenced to four years in prison, an official said last Thursday.

The three East African countries have developed an action plan to curb illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing on Lake Victoria. Directors of fisheries from the three countries said they have established regular cross-border meetings involving fishermen, law enforcement agencies, fisheries officers and local authorities from both sides of the border.

A new variety of genetically superior eucalyptus trees has been introduced in Kenya, a move that could save Kenya's forests from further depletion. The trees are being introduced to rural farmers in an initiative spearheaded by the National Agriculture and Livestock Extension Program - an extension initiative funded by the Swedish International Development Agency.

Marooned off Africa's western coast, the 150,000 people of São Tomé e Príncipe scrape a living from cocoa, fish, aid and tourism. But oil firms, sniffing with seismic ships, think billions of barrels may lie beneath the island-state's territorial waters. Oil could change everything in this former Portuguese colony. This week, for instance, the president, Fradique de Menezes, sacked a parliament that had been planning to curb some of his powers—including his power to negotiate oil deals. An election will be held in April.

Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Zambia are ironing out the details of an environmental initiative that aims to share natural resources and their management in the underdeveloped trans boundary region linking the three countries. The ZIMOZA trans boundary natural resources management initiative will see the participating regions of Luangwa in Zambia, Zumbo in Mozambique and Guruve in Zimbabwe combine efforts to develop the area by building schools, health centres, boreholes and other amenities.

Most African countries will have switched to unleaded petrol - or will have almost phased out lead from petrol - within five years, according to research by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Economic activity can cause environmental degradation, it is clear. But just how great is the impact of international trade on the global environment? This study focuses on the extent to which the transportation of goods around the world increases greenhouse gases and leads directly to climate change.

The UK's Department for International Development (DFID) has just published a revised draft consultation paper on the role of land policy in providing better livelihoods for poor people. The paper examines the importance of land, land rights and land reform in developing countries, and considers how land policies can contribute to poverty reduction and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. It advocates a rights-based approach to land through advocacy and representation of the poor in land management.

International trade and environmental protection are issues that continually arise on the global policy agenda, including the ongoing World Trade Organization negotiations. But as this volume illustrates, there are often profound differences of perspective, even clashes of interest, between the rich industrialized and developing countries. This book seeks to clarify the issues, detailing how trade impacts on the environment, and the effects that environmental concerns can have on trade.

There are nearly 5 000 chimpanzees living in Uganda, according to a recently completed census. But continued hunting and human encroachment on their habitat could reduce that number, said scientists on Tuesday.

An animal rights group has appealed to the Congolese authorities to revise the existing endangered species law to include marine turtles among the country's protected animals. ''Despite the benefits that sea turtles bring, they are being massacred by coastal residents for food or for economic reasons,'' says Alexis Mayet, president of the Congolese Educational Association for the Environment and Nature, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), with the French acronym ACEN.

A global report just released on internally displaced persons (IDPs) has described the abundance of land mines in numerous African countries as a major impediment to the ability of displaced persons to reclaim their lands. The report has cited Angola as one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, with an estimated 8 to10 million land mines.

A strange phenomenon in the shallow waters of South-western Africa - regular eruptions of toxic hydrogen sulphide - is about to be mapped and studied. These gas discharges change the ocean's blue colour into turquoise and result in extensive fish deaths. The research vessel (Meteor) has left Cape Town to find out why.

Ten forest officers have been sent packing as the Narc government intensifies war on corruption. Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife Minister Newton Kulundu said the suspended officers have been "destroying the very resource they are supposed to guard".

A fund has been launched in Kenya to put an electric fence around one of the east African nation's largest forest reserves to protect it from illegal loggers, poachers and general human encroachment.

Zambia faces a "daunting outlook" for 2003 with expectations of another poor harvest, says a report from the office of the UN Resident Coordinator. The food crisis was brought about by a consecutive drop in food production in 2002 (down 40 percent on the previous five year average), due to drought. By the middle of 2002 inflation was at 23.7 percent and the national currency, the kwacha, had depreciated by 14 percent.

The first international meeting of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, an economic development and conservation program for six Central African countries, is set to open in Paris on Tuesday. Under pressure from population growth, poverty, unsustainable resource use, and political instability, the Congo Basin forests are the focus of a new initiative by a partnership of 29 governments, international organisations, environmental and business interests - the Congo Basin Forest Partnership.

Redistributive land reform in Namibia is widely regarded as a precondition for sustainable rural development and poverty alleviation. This document briefly discusses the development of thinking on land reform and the development of land reform models prior to Independence. It refers to progress on land redistribution since 1990 and discusses some of the problems experienced.

Redistributive land reform in Namibia is widely regarded as a precondition for sustainable rural development and poverty alleviation. This paper briefly discusses the development of thinking on land reform and the development of land reform models prior to Independence. It refers to progress on land redistribution since 1990 and discusses some of the problems experienced, concluding that land reform in Namibia has progressed at a very slow pace.

Kenya's new President Mwai Kibaki has named Dr. Newton Kulundu as Environment Minister and Professor Wangari Maathai as assistant minister. Maathai was elected to Parliament in Kenya on December 27 on the opposition National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) ticket. Maathai is a world-renowned environmentalist, who rose to fame for her spirited campaigns against government backed forest clearance.