Shipping containers packed with a toxic chemical are leaking in the port of Djibouti, and the pollution could spread, a U.N. food agency said Tuesday. The chemical — chromated copper arsenate, which is used as a wood preservative — was shipped from Britain for delivery to the Ethiopian Power Corporation, according to the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization. The pesticide is carcinogenic and dangerous to the environment.

Drought, poverty, creeping deserts, and scarce drinking water headline a U.N.-sponsored conference on global development and the environment this week. Delegates from 50 African, Caribbean, and Latin American countries were evaluating the 1994 U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, which has been ratified by 180 countries but has spurred few to act.

The City of Johannesburg, Region 7 Office has appointed Nemai Consulting to undertake a investigation into the improvement of the degraded condition of the Jukskei River. They invite you to participate in an Open Day, scheduled at the COUNCIL CHAMBERS at the METROPOLITAN
BUILDING, to showcase all
work done by various organisations, groups and parties in relation to
overall improvement of water resources.

Zimbabwe's controversial "fast track" land reform programme is the cause of much of the economic, political and social instability in the country, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said in a new report released on Wednesday.

Half the population of Uganda lacks access to safe water, and only about 30 percent has access to adequate sanitation, according to Minister of State for Water, Lands and the Environment Maria Mutagamba. Uganda has a population of about 22 million.

More than four decades of oil exploration and production activities have left a severely degraded environment in Nigeria's southern, Niger Delta oil region. Spills - the uncontrolled discharge of oil or its by-products including chemicals and wastes, which mainly occurs through equipment failure, operational errors, or wilful damage - have been identified as the main source of environmental damage in the region over time.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) (August/September 2002) could make an important contribution to healing the divisions of the world and alleviating the poverty that leads to so many of them. However such an outcome is dependent on participants realising that it is both simplistic and counterproductive to try and separate the economic and environmental components of poverty.

At an age when most people contemplate retirement, David and Sheila Siddle faced an altogether different dilemma: help a badly wounded chimpanzee or let it die.

The South African Government is to commit R10 million to an ambitious, multi-faceted conservation and research programme that involves scientist, submersibles, ships, helicopters and - fish. Coelacanths, the mysterious 'fossil fish' which was first discovered in its living form off the coast of South Africa in 1938, will be at the center of the study.

Mountains -- homes of the gods, sources of life-giving waters, gigantic monuments of rock and ice - that for centuries posed as impenetrable boundaries, are increasingly falling vulnerable to humans' sporting endurance, to an onslaught of travelers seeking escape from cluttered lives, and to demands on natural resources and cultural institutions that far exceed capacities. Ironically, tourism -- that which brought laudable economic opportunities to here-to-fore isolated and undeveloped mountain regions - is turning mountains into "the world's highest trash dumps," into high altitude Disneylands that misrepresent and exploit mountain cultures with little gain for mountain inhabitants. Infrastructure development (roads, airports, hotels, communications, etc.) is opening mountain regions to mass tourism before proper tourism planning or management can take place.

Amnesty International says new regulations are needed to prevent diamonds from funding civil wars in Africa.

We welcome that the Bush Administration is changing its position and taking the climate issue more seriously. Introducing new tax incentives for more efficient and renewable energy technologies is certainly a step in the right direction. I am however concerned about the adequacy of the commitment being made and in particular that the administration plans to increase US emissions by at least an additional 12 percent in the next ten years. This will leave the US producing at least 35 percent more greenhouse gasses in 2010 than would be permitted under the Kyoto protocol.

A US $7.1 million conservation project in Tana River District, eastern Kenya, has stalled after the lead financier opposed the displacement of some 600 families planned under the scheme.

Ethiopia and Egypt have pledged to fully develop the potential of the Nile River to bolster greater relations between the two countries, Ethiopian government sources told IRIN on Friday.

Two new reports by U.S. and international conservation groups detail the extensive threats to wildlife and biodiversity hotspots posed by global warming. Saying the studies provide further evidence that quick action is needed to combat climate change, the groups are calling on U.S. lawmakers to help cut greenhouse gas emissions by enacting higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks.

Scientists have confirmed that thousands of fish deaths along the Somali and Kenyan coasts were caused by two types of naturally occurring toxic algae, which should dissipate naturally by next week, a Kenyan official said Thursday.

There are only a few hundred mountain gorillas left in the wild, making them one of the rarest large mammals on earth. Their survival stems partly from the efforts of the famed American researcher Dian Fossey, who brought their plight to the attention of the world before her murder in 1985.

In my writing I have discussed the importance of the nitrogen cycle and the relationship between plant growth and organic and inorganic nitrogen. As it happens, I may have been mistaken — and so might more than a century of biological science.

By age 6, Waris Dirie was herding her family's sheep and goats, fending off hyenas and wild dogs as the family carved a path through Africa. She was just twice that age when she ran off into the vast furnace of the Somali desert to escape an arranged marriage to a much older man. Traveling for days without food and water, she made her way to Mogadishu and later to London as a servant to her uncle, the Somalian ambassador. There she wrestled with culture shock and got her first taste of the modeling life that eventually brought her into the public eye. Dirie is resilient, having survived drought, hunger, and the ritual female genital mutilation that marks a step toward womanhood among some traditional Moslems but, argue critics, steals or ruins many girls' lives. "As we traveled throughout Somalia," says Dirie, "we met families and I played with their daughters. When we visited them again, the girls were missing. No one spoke the truth about their absence or even spoke of them at all." As a special ambassador to the United Nations, Dirie has spoken out loudly on this subject and championed environmental causes, too. How much of her sometimes breathless story is gospel truth and how much embellished is hard to say. Like Dirie herself, though, the combination is intriguing, powerful, and unique.ISBN: 0688172377, 1999.

The Reuters Foundation, which runs fellowship programmes for mid-career journalists, is currently taking applications for the next round of fellowships with a focus on environmental journalism.