The worldwide decimation of wildlife by humans could be "permanent on multi-million year timescales," warns James Kirchner of the University of California at Berkeley. Kirchner's analysis of long term trends in the fossil record suggests that natural speed limits constrain how quickly biodiversity can rebound after waves of extinction.

A French parliamentary commission on modern slavery has found the country's law and procedures inadequate to deal with human trafficking and other forms of slavery in France.

The Botswana government's prudent management of the diamond-dependent economy will be challenged by the global economic slowdown, a growing HIV/AIDS burden, and the regional impact of the Zimbabwe crisis, the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) said in its latest forecast.

Floods could hit parts of southern Africa again this year as experts predict above normal rainfall in many areas until at least the end of February.

Policy debates around forests and livelihoods, biodiversity, sustainable timber production and watershed protection now emphasise social inclusion and participation. Yet comparative research in West Africa and the Caribbean demonstrates how current configurations of science and policy continue to exclude the knowledge and experiences of land users - especially the poorest - remaining antithetical to their interests, and compromising broader policy effectiveness.

Natural disasters caused at least 25,000 deaths worldwide in 2001, more than double the previous year, the world's largest reinsurer said on Friday. Putting total economic losses at $36 billion, Munich Re said catastrophes related to extreme weather were a result of continued global climate change.

For thousands of years it was a place of spiritual upliftment where shamans entered trances and etched their visions in stone. Today, the newly opened Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Site is being used to boost the economy of an uprooted community in South Africa's impoverished Northern Cape province. Located about 10 miles from the diamond-mining town of Kimberley, it is one of the few rock art sites to be opened to the public in South Africa, which boasts some of the finest stone engravings and paintings in the world.

At COP7 in Marrakesh, the Kyoto Protocol was weakened even further--it is, now, the Marrakesh Dilution of the Bonn Compromise to the Kyoto Protocol. Nevertheless, and despite the often-dispiriting nature of Kyoto's loopholes, we believe that the essential situation remains unchanged. Particularly in today's grim international context, the ratification of even this weakened first-generation climate treaty must be counted as a major victory for democratic, multilateral environmental governance. And this remains true despite 9-11, despite the arrival of the U.S.-led "anti-terror coalition," and despite the newly uncertain fate of the Bonn coalition.

Sponsored internationally by William M. Mercer, the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Awards programme includes development communications, with a new division covering communication programmes focused on economic, social, environmental, and Third World development, including population and health issues. Deadline: February 6, 2002

'What they don’t understand is that the wildlife is in such a delicate state that if you leave it another four months there’ll be nothing left' says a leading conservationist.

While accounts of the unjust arrest and torture of political prisoners are by now common, we expect such victims to come with a just cause. Here, Oufkir tells of the 20-year imprisonment of her upper-class Moroccan family following a 1972 coup attempt against King Hassan II by her father, a close military aide. After her father's execution, Oufkir, her mother and five siblings were carted off to a series of desert barracks, along with their books, toys and French designer clothes in the family's Vuitton luggage. At their first posting, they complained that they were short on butter and sweets. Over the years, subsequent placements brought isolation cells and inadequate, vermin-infested rations. Finally, starving and suicidal, the innocents realized they had been left to die. They dug a tunnel and escaped. Recapture led to another five years of various forms of imprisonment before the family was finally granted freedom. ISBN: 0786868619, Talk Miramax Books, 2001.

Heavy rains in southern Mozambique have virtually made the city of Inhambane inaccessible by road, Radio Mozambique reported at the weekend.

The World Bank, USAID and African governments have pledged US $39 million for an initiative to wipe out onchocerciasis - river blindness - in Africa by 2010, according to the World Bank. The initiative is based on the "highly successful" West African Onchocerciasis Control Programme (OCP), begun in 1974, the World Bank said in a statement on Friday.

An estimated 13,000 people have been affected by heavy rains and flooding in Mbandaka, in the northwestern province of Equateur in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Wednesday.

Keeping it all together takes on new importance when it comes to forest habitat. Dividing a forest into fragments with roads, settlements, and agriculture makes the remaining habitat patches much more vulnerable to ecological stressors.

Before September 11th, travel and tourism was the world's largest industry, accounting for one in every 12 jobs. When the massive $3.6 trillion industry almost ground to a halt after the terrorist attacks, the ripple effects extended well beyond the United States, exposing the vulnerability of countries too dependent on international tourism, reports the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC based environmental research organization.

War and other conflicts, and the poverty of mountain peoples, are leading to the decimation of mountain ecosystems and the species which depend upon them, the United Nations said Tuesday. Mountain forests are vanishing across the globe, prompting the organization to designate 2002 as the International Year of Mountains.

Fourteen people were killed in renewed violent clashes on Sunday between Orma and Pokomo communities in Tana River District, eastern Kenya, bringing the death toll from fighting in the district to more than 50 in the last week.

Wildlife smugglers are profiting from the ongoing political turmoil in Zimbabwe.

Fourteen people were killed in renewed violent clashes on Sunday between Orma and Pokomo communities in Tana River District, eastern Kenya, bringing the death toll from fighting in the district to more than 50 in the last week.