East Africa unites with UN, Interpol to curb illegal logging

Global partnership seeks to check deforestation and crossborder illegalities in timber trade

News 360° - Briefs

Tanzanian government evicts pastoralists

Science & Technology - Briefs

Cold comfort for 400,000 Burundi refugees

Protest against plant near Tanzania's Lake Natron

In short

News 360° - Briefs

Restoring Lake Victoria: CSE, Tanzanian authorities hold multi-nation stakeholder consultation

Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda attend meeting to discuss strategies to restore lake

Mystery behind the cracks on African bush elephants’ skin decoded

Researchers explain that the animals regulate their body heat through their skin, which helps in absorbing maximum water

British king acknowledges colonial atrocities in Kenya — here’s what could happen next

Public acknowledgements of colonial legacy in east Africa by Britain, German and Belgium can be classified under broad framework of transitional …

A continental crisis, and a few green shoots

African countries are fighting an addiction: import of food items, which happens at the cost of domestic farmers. Despite the unprecedented …

Big helium reserve found in Tanzania

Helium is extremely rare on the earth. Its concentration in Tanzania could be 54 billion cubic feet in just one part of the Rift Valley

‘Selous Game Reserve dam rooted in geopolitics over Nile’

Conservationist Mordecai Ogada says the decision to build a $3 billion dam on the Rufiji river that flows through the protected area is an …

When superstition gets under the skin

In Africa, people living with albinism are perceived as ghosts and live with constant fear of being killed. Down To Earth talks to those who …

Comics workshop

There's a different way comics -- a mixed narrative form that uses text and images, what American cartoonist Art Spiegelmann called 'comix' -- …

Finds in Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge reveal how ancient humans adapted to change

This is a clear sign that 2 million years ago humans were not constrained technologically and already had the capacity to expand geographic range

Plastics ban calls for deliberation, not draconian measures

While a plastic-free society may sound good, issues like lack of alternatives to banned products and potential threats to livelihoods of millions …

The gold rush

Tanzania is regulating its gold mining sector. Small-scale artisanal mining is also being legalised in this poor country

How corruption encourages illegal fishing on Lake Victoria

By encouraging illegal fishing to continue, corruption is undermining the comanagement system implemented to encourage more sustainable practices

Tanzania’s gas boom that never was — when local hopes are dashed by global realities

Perceptions of what gas could bring in the future changed; the industry shattered dreams and left environmental effects such as pollution …

Elephant poaching rates vary across Africa: 19 years of data from 64 sites suggest why

Poaching rates are lower where there is strong national governance and where local levels of human development are relatively high

Ancient DNA helps reveal social changes in Africa 50,000 years ago that shaped the human story

Around 20,000 years ago, foragers in some African regions were almost exclusively finding their partners locally

From Australia to Africa, fences are stopping Earth’s great animal migrations

For time immemorial, many wildlife species have survived by undertaking heroic long-distance migrations. But many of these great migrations are …

As Tanzania’s Lake Rukwa continues to dry up, NGOs focus on sensitising locals

Shared Resources Joint Solutions (SRJS) initiative has been launched to build institutional capacity of civil society organisations