Two of Asia's three rhino species are 'critically endangered', writes David Tosh, yet the lion's share of rhino conservation resources is lavished on Africa. The reason is simple: Africa's rhinos generate more cash from tourism. But should this really be the point?
… Africa's rhinos grab the cash while their … Tosh | 2nd October 2015 Comment Mammals Asia Africa Conservation Finance Economics … rhino conservation resources is lavished on Africa. The reason is simple: Africa's rhinos …
Campaigners have forced the biggest shareholder in a titanium mining project on south Africa's 'Wild Coast' to withdraw, reports Rachel Lees. But they now fear the project itself will continue under the auspices of local 'front' companies, while the big profits enrich the British and Australian investors that are the real masters of Africa's neo-colonial minerals boom.
… Victory in the campaign against mining South Africa's Wild Coast - but it's not over yet! Rachel Lees | 21st July 2016 News Mining Africa South Africa Finance UK Australia Indigenous Peoples …
The pristine landscape of South Africa's Wild Coast is under threat from mining, writes Hal Rhoades, and the communities standing up to defend the land are facing deadly consequences: harassment, threats, physical assault and murder. Attacks on mine opponents have taken four lives so far and many others have been injured. But the opposition is growing and gaining international support.
… murder: the deadly struggle to protect South Africa's Wild Coast Hal Rhoades | 12th May 2016 News Mining South AfricaAfrica Indigenous Peoples Protest Finance …
What was NATO's violent intervention in Libya really all about? Now we know, writes Ellen Brown, thanks to Hillary Clinton's recently published emails. It was to prevent the creation of an independent hard currency in Africa that would free the continent from economic bondage under the dollar, the IMF and the French African franc, shaking off the last heavy chains of colonial exploitation.
… Why Qaddafi had to go: African gold, oil and the challenge to … | 14th March 2016 News Finance Economics Africa Libya War Politics USA France … creation of an independent hard currency in Africa that would free the continent from …
Lured by promises of aid and investment, African governments are rewriting laws to create lucrative opportunities for corporate agribusiness, writes Chris Walker - while consigning their own farmers to servitude and landlessness. But now farmers are rising up, as in Ghana where a new 'Monsanto law' threatens to end their right to grow, save and share their ancestral seeds.
… Africa's farmers fight the corporate takeover … Walker | 4th June 2015 News Farming Seeds Africa Corporations Finance Law Development … Lured by promises of aid and investment, African governments are rewriting laws to …
Perhaps all the 'do gooders' busy forcing industrial models of agriculture onto poor but independent African farmers really do think they are helping them, writes Colin Todhunter. But if so they are deeply deluded. All they will achieve is the takeover of export-oriented agribusiness and GMOs, the destruction of agroecological farming systems, and a future of debt and landlessness.
… embedding agribusiness and GMOs into African agriculture Colin Todhunter | 8th April 2016 Comment Farming Africa GMOs Nutrition Health Finance … of agriculture onto poor but independent African farmers really do think they are …
Before rushing to finance projects in Africa and the Middle East, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) should address its environmental and social lending criteria, says Fidanka Bacheva-McGrath
… Before rushing to finance projects in Africa and the Middle East, the European Bank … plans to expand its operations to North Africa and the Middle East. But rather than … role of supporting democratisation in North Africa and the Middle East. Rising up Oz-like …
A 'slow genocide' is unfolding in Ethiopia - one driven by greed rather than hatred. With Chinese and World Bank finance, massive dams and plantations are robbing the Omo Valley's 500,000 indigenous people of their land and water. The UK 'sees no evil'.
… | 7th April 2014 News Land Grabs Ethiopia Africa Finance Indigenous Peoples … communities ", said Leslie Lefkow , deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "The … isolated and under-developed areas in East Africa. At least eight different groups call …
An energy revolution that would take the world to 100% renewables in 15 years is possible, write Sam Cossar-Gilbert and Dipti Bhatnagar. We have the technology, and we even have the money - only it's currently being spent to subsidise fossil fuels. The time has come to tackle two hugely destructive and closely entwined crises - growing inequality and climate change.
… Change Renewables Finance COP21 Society solar-africa-cut.jpg An energy revolution that would … of major corporations - would be enough power Africa, Latin America and much of Asia with … richest 53 people could power the whole of Africa with 100% renewable energy by 2030. …
With COP21 out of the way there is absolutely no time to lose, Greenpeace director Kumi Naidoo told Pavlos Georgiadis: 'Because by tomorrow, there might be no tomorrow.' We need substantial, structural, systemic change - and this change can only be led by the youth, who are not infected by the political pollution of the past. And whose future is it anyway?
… is it anyway? Kumi Naidoo was born in South Africa, and became involved in the country's … of the civil society movement in South Africa, and now is one of the chief global … revolution. Dressed in traditional South African attire, Kumi welcomed me with a strong …
Agriculture is big business and with the EU pumping money at the sector, the corporate profiteers are holding all the aces, writes Chris Lang. The documentary ‘Land Grabbing’ investigates what happens when well-financed agro-investors take over rural communities' land and water.
… Grabs Farming Finance EU Romania Cambodia Africa Sierra Leone oil-palm-indonesia-cut.jpg … 'top of the market' in the Middle East and Africa. The work is backbreaking and poorly … is the next stop. Addax Bioenergy earned Africa's first Rountable on Sustainable …
The plight of Kenya's Sengwer people shows that carbon offsets generated by 'sustainable' forest management are empowering a corporate recolonisation of the South backed by the World Bank against its own guidelines, writes Nafeez Ahmed. Indigenous forest peoples are at risk of genocide while corporations let rip.
… total of 500 million acres of land in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean was … A letter to the Bank in March by No REDD in Africa network (Nran) - a group of African civil society organisations - signed …
It's not just western corporations that are moving into large-scale agribusiness in Ethiopia, writes Mohammad Amir Anwar. Indian investors have acquired rights to some 6,000 sq.km of land much of it in the ecologically sensitive Gambela region, where unconsulted Nuer and Anuak peoples are suffering from forest clearance.
… of land in foreign countries, most of it in Africa . A great deal of attention has been … to tread carefully when acquiring land in Africa. This is best illustrated in the … in land deals that disadvantage the people of Africa given the role it sees for itself in …
Ann Pettifor has changed the world once; now she wants to do it again.
… After all, she was born in apartheid South Africa; she knows the world can change. … of the earth’. Later, she learned that South African gold was taken to build up the … an idealist. She was born in apartheid South Africa; she knows the world can change. …
Prospects for a global climate deal under the UN are receding fast, writes Assaad Razzouk, as the Green Climate Fund is short-changed by donor nations. But there's still plenty to hope for with a private sector that's stepping up to the mark, and fast-growing decentralised climate action.
… (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have decisively undermined the entire … India, China, parts of South East Asia and in Africa. Expect China-backed institutions to …
The financial industry has been quick to dismiss its role in pushing up food prices but with the evidence growing daily the Ecologist cuts through the jargon to explain the reality of food speculation
… commercial farmer exporting wheat to North Africa is engaged in a different undertaking … change in the cost of a bag of wheat in South Africa? It is this grey area that allows the …
'Pay up or there's no deal', a coalition of 134 developing nations have warned the rich industrial countries at COP21 in Paris - the ones that caused the climate problem in the first place. As Paul Brown writes, much more than the $64 billion so far pledged will be needed to get them on board.
… Part of the statement issued by South African delegate Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko, on … "Of course, countries like China and South Africa are far richer than they used to be, … more than the US to help countries in West Africa by providing solar panels and other …
In Ken Silverstein's 'The Secret World of Oil', Louis Proyect investigates the uber-wealthy middlemen of oil, inhabiting a pampered universe of moral squalor and depravity - one in which Tony Blair found himself completely at home.
… | 8th July 2014 Reviews Oil Fossil Fuels USA Africa Finance secret-world-of-oil-cut.jpg In … skullduggery in Equatorial Guinea, another African oil-producing nation, even though like … his innocence. In 2004 a group of 60 South African and European mercenaries were arrested …
The eviction of Kenya's Sengwer forest people in a World Bank financed project was a failure of the Bank's duty to protect indigenous people, according to an internal report. The Bank's directors are to decide on how to respond today - but if they follow their own management's advice, the evictions will continue.
… 2014 News Kenya Finance Indigenous Peoples Africa Forests sengwer-fires-cut.jpg The …
As the G20 meet in China this weekend, it's time for governments to finally get tough on the world's tax dodgers, write Dipti Bhatnagar & Sam Cossar-Gilbert. The missing tax revenues would be able to finance a 100% renewable electricity system covering half the planet by 2030 - a major step in raising living standards and tackling climate change.
… a 15-year period could power half the world - Africa, Latin America and much of Asia - with …
At the UN climate summit in New York today, institutional investors managing $24 trillion of assets are demanding stronger, more ambitious policies on climate change, writes Kieran Cooke. These include an effective carbon price and an end to fossil fuel subsidies.
… investors in Asia, Australia, South Africa and the US - have put their signatures …
Overtaken by massive regional trade agreements like TPP, TTIP, CETA and TINA, the World Trade Organisation has slipped into the background, writes Polly Jones. But this week it's back with a vengeance, with its first big meeting in two years. The US's plan is to globalise the investment protection regime set out in the TTP, and open a new era of corporate rule and the eradication of democracy.
… time in Nairobi and for the first time in Africa, and I will be there. While there are …
As ever more companies and governments pledge to 'go green' and protect forests, the world's tribal peoples should be among the main beneficiaries, writes Amy Dickens. Yet the reverse is the case. All too often the promises are purest greenwash, used to conceal the human and environmental tragedy of land-grabbing for plantations, mines, logging and even 'conservation'.
… September 2015 Activism Indigenous Peoples Africa Cameroon Philippines Paraguay Farming …