The High Court Land Division on Monday issued an interim order stopping the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) from evicting residents of Kito and Namataba villages in Wakiso. The interim order was issued after the Deputy registrar Susan Kanyange observed that NEMA only gave a 21 days eviction notice to the …
Read More »Study warns of world’s groundwater depletion by 2050
Washington, United States | AFP | Groundwater resources could be depleted in the next few decades in dry areas of the world where people use lots of water for drinking and irrigating crops, researchers said Thursday. The research was presented at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in …
Read More »Government to divert money from roads to mitigate drought, hunger
President Museveni opens war on environmental degradation. ‘It’s causing death and destruction’ President Yoweri Museveni has said government will suspend some road projects and divert money to help mitigate the current drought and hunger situation in the country. “People can’t die of hunger and we focus on roads,” Museveni said …
Read More »Giraffes ‘threatened with extinction’
Paris, France | AFP | Wild giraffe numbers have plummeted by 40 percent in the last three decades, and the species is now “vulnerable” to extinction, a top conservation body warned Thursday. The population of the world’s tallest land mammal dropped to below 100,000 in 2015, mainly due to shrinking …
Read More »Uganda’s environmental agency dragged to court over withholding EIA details to local residents
By Ronald Musoke The National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) has been dragged to court by a local civil society organization in an attempt to force it to release details of an environment impact assessment it sanctioned four years ago allowing a Chinese firm to do quarrying activities in a village …
Read More »Paris rat catchers deployed to tackle rodent scourge
Paris, France | AFP | Paris officials have announced a crackdown on rats which blight parks and gardens around the City of Light and are thought to easily outnumber humans. The city’s rodents were given an image overhaul in 2007 in the hit animated film “Ratatouille” which depicted them cooking …
Read More »Sweden slaughters 200,000 hens on bird flu fears
Stockholm, Sweden | AFP | Sweden on Friday said 200,000 chickens were being slaughtered at a farm where bird flu has been detected, following a resurgence in the virus across Europe. Traces of the H5N8 virus were found at the Aniagra farm in Morarp, southwest Sweden, on Thursday. The discovery …
Read More »Polluted water in hand, Nigerian king takes Shell to court in London
London, United Kingdom | AFP | King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi holds up a plastic bottle containing contaminated water from his community in Nigeria, proof of oil pollution that he blames on Royal Dutch Shell — and on which he hopes a London court will deliver justice. “My people …
Read More »ANALYSIS: Africa looks to solar for communities off the grid
Dakar, Senegal | AFP | Above the sacks of seeds and coal, three kerosene lamps gather dust in the tiny shed that Kenyan chicken farmer Bernard calls home. He prefers to use solar energy to light up his evenings, listen to the radio or watch television, after abandoning a diesel …
Read More »Obama declares parts of Arctic off-limits for oil drilling
Washington, United States | AFP | US President Barack Obama on Friday declared portions of the Arctic off-limits for oil exploration for the next five years, dealing a blow to Republican efforts to expand fossil fuel extraction. The decision means new oil and gas exploration leasing in the Chukchi Sea …
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