SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS - The African Mirror

Oct

21

2024

How do you stop elephant herds from trashing crops and trees? Target sensitive nostrils with a ‘scent fence’

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

ELEPHANT numbers are surging in southern Africa, with fewer natural predators, reduced hunting pressure and feeding by farmers and tourist operators. While this is good for elephants, it’s making life harder for humans who live near them. These huge herbivores can raid crops and destroy large trees in national parks with impunity, causing problems for farmers and land managers alike. Traditional solutions aren’t ideal. Culling is controversial, and building fences strong enough to deter elephants is very expensive. But there’s another option: a fence made of scent. We have explored how specific plant scents can stop wallabies from eating native…

Oct

18

2024

By ABEBAYEHU ATICHO; ABEBE BEYENE; ANDREW GOSLER; DESALEGN CHALA; NILS CHRISTIAN STENSETH and SHIMELIS AYNALEM ZELELEW

Nuer people have a sacred connection to birds – it can guide conservation in Ethiopia and South Sudan

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS, EDITORS CHOICE

THE Nuer are a large pastoralist community living in western Ethiopia and South Sudan in east Africa. They rely on livestock keeping and have special beliefs and customs about how to live with nature. These are passed down from parents to children through the telling of stories. Uncommonly for East African pastoralists, the Nuer live in an expansive, low-lying floodplain. This Gambella region is shaped by the convergence of several rivers originating in the Ethiopian highlands. Its wetlands and lush greenery offer a unique habitat that supports both the Nuer and a wide variety of birds and other wildlife. The…

Oct

16

2024

By STEVEN MATOME MATHETSA

South Africa’s 36.1% electricity price hike for 2025: why the power utility Eskom’s request is unrealistic

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

SOUTH Africa’s state-owned electricity company, Eskom, has applied to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa to approve a 36.1% electricity price hike from April 2025, an 11.8% price increase in 2026 and a 9.1% increase in 2027. Steven Mathetsa teaches and researches sustainable energy systems at the University of the Witwatersrand’s African Energy Leadership Centre. He explains some of the problems with the planned tariff increase. Why such a big hike? Eskom says the multi-year price increase is because of the need to move closer to a cost-reflective tariff that reflects the actual costs of supplying electricity. However, Eskom’s…

Oct

15

2024

By NICHOLAS WESTCOTT

Britain has neglected Africa and the Commonwealth for over a decade: 4 ways it can reset relations

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

THE United Kingdom is resetting its relations with Africa and other countries in the global south after more than a decade of neglect. At the United Nations in September, British prime minister Keir Starmer promised his government was returning the UK to responsible global leadership. This should include reconnecting with the countries of the global south which feel they have been neglected and among whom Britain’s voice is now at a discount. The new Labour government’s recently launched reviews of Britain’s global impact and its international economic and development policies provide an opportunity to reevaluate and relaunch these relations. The…

Oct

13

2024

By NTHABISENG MOHLAKOANA

South Africa’s coal workers face an uncertain future – Mpumalanga study flags they’re being left out of the green transition

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

SOUTH Africa is on the path to decarbonisation – doing away with burning coal and other fossil fuels and moving towards renewable, clean energy, such as solar and wind power. However, the coal industry employs 91,000 people. If these workers lost their jobs and were not transferred to new jobs in renewable energy and other sectors, this would devastate entire communities. Recent estimates by the renewable energy industry say the shift from coal has the potential to create 250,000 jobs by 2047. Energy transition researcher Nthabiseng Mohlakoana was part of a group of Centre for Sustainability Transitions academics who asked…

Oct

12

2024

By OLASUNKANMI HABEEB OKUNOLA and SASKIA WERNERS

Post-flood recovery: lessons from Germany and Nigeria on how to help people cope with loss and build resilience

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

EXTREME climate events — floods, droughts and heatwaves — are not just becoming more frequent; they are also more severe. It’s important to understand how communities can recover from these events in ways that also build resilience to future events. In a recent study, we analysed how communities affected by the extreme flood events of 2021 in Germany’s Ahr Valley and in Lagos, Nigeria, grappled with recovery from floods. Our aim was to identify the factors – and combinations of factors – that served as barriers (or enablers) to recovery from disasters. We found that financial limitations, political interests and…

Oct

10

2024

By ANDRÉ WESSELS

Anglo-Boer War: how a bloody conflict 125 years ago still shapes South Africa

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

THE 125th anniversary of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 is marked on 11 October 2024. Also known as the South African War or the Second Boer War, the brutal conflict between the colonising forces of the British and the Boers (originally Dutch settlers, today known as Afrikaners) affected all cultural groups in the war zone. The war had profound consequences for the way that South Africa developed in the course of the 1900s and beyond. André Wessels has researched the war and its aftermath for nearly five decades, and has published several books and academic papers on it. We asked…

Oct

09

2024

By KANG-CHUN CHENG

In Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado, extraction and insurgency without end

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.By Kang-Chun Cheng MOZAMBICANS go to the polls tomorrow in presidential and legislative elections that are almost certain to extend the ruling Frelimo party’s half-century in power, despite its inability to end a long-running Islamist insurgency in the northern province of Cabo Delgado. The extreme violence of the so-called Islamic State in Mozambique, known locally as al-Shabab, has forced roughly a million people from their homes, killed an estimated 4,000 civilians, and stunted economic growth in a gas and resource-rich province. Borges Nhamirre, a researcher with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS),…

Oct

08

2024

By TIMOTHY GRAHAM

Is big tech harming society? To find out, we need research – but it’s being manipulated by big tech itself

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

FOR almost a decade, researchers have been gathering evidence that the social media platform Facebook disproportionately amplifies low-quality content and misinformation. So it was something of a surprise when in 2023 the journal Science published a study that found Facebook’s algorithms were not major drivers of misinformation during the 2020 United States election. This study was funded by Facebook’s parent company, Meta. Several Meta employees were also part of the authorship team. It attracted extensive media coverage. It was also celebrated by Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, who said it showed the company’s algorithms have “no detectable impact…

Oct

07

2024

By PEARL S. KYEI

Children in west Africa are often sent to live with other families to help them get ahead – but fostering may be doing the opposite

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

IN west Africa, it’s common for families to foster children informally. This helps ease the burden on parents and can give children from poorer families a chance to improve their lives. An estimated 20% to 40% of mothers in the region have sent at least one child to live with another household for an extended period. That household acts as a “social parent”. Education is one of the leading reasons for the practice: children can be in households with more resources for schooling or closer to schools. Whether this fostering is beneficial or harmful depends on how much the host…