SUSTAINABILITY - The African Mirror

Dec

11

2020

Why a new potato variety could be a game-changer for farmers in East Africa

SUSTAINABILITY

IMAGINE being a potato farmer in Ethiopia, Kenya or Nigeria. On a small piece of land, which you depend on for food and income, you have spent months planting, weeding and watering. Up to twice a week, you manually spray your field, sometimes with limited equipment, or hire someone to do it, spending much of your income on fungicides to avoid crop diseases. TADESSA DABA, Director, Agricultural Biotechnology Research Directorate, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research And yet within a week of cold and humid weather, your entire field has been destroyed by late blight, a disease that wipes out a…

Dec

10

2020

By The African Mirror

Conservationists trying to save Kenyan giraffes stranded on flooding island

SUSTAINABILITY

CONSERVATIONISTS are working to rescue giraffes stranded on an island in Lake Boringo in western Kenya after heavy rains led to the flooding of their rangeland habitat, threatening the animals with drowning. Relentless rains have increased lake levels which began to swallow up the peninsula where the giraffes have been living. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) in collaboration with the United States-based Save Giraffes Now and Kenya's Northern Rangelands Trust rescued two of the giraffes with a custom-made steel barge and is working to rescue the remaining six from the island. "There is great urgency to execute this rescue," said…

Dec

09

2020

By The African Mirror

Nairobi’s air has been polluted for decades: new review suggests a path forward

SUSTAINABILITY

ACCORDING to the State of the Global Air 2020 report, ambient air pollution was responsible for around 5,000 premature deaths in Kenya in 2019 alone. It is the fourth most important risk factor in driving death and disability combined in Kenya. Indeed, the 2017 national economic survey estimated that 19.9 million Kenyans suffer from respiratory ailments that are exacerbated by poor air quality. PRIYANKA DESOUZA, PhD researcher at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Kenya’s national environmental management agency imposed regulations in 2014 for national ambient air quality standards. These set out the maximum permissible…

Sep

21

2021

By The African Mirror

How countries alongside the Sahara can restore productive land faster

SUSTAINABILITY

NIGERIA'S President Muhammadu Buhari is about to take over the presidency of the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall – the continent’s effort to restore degraded cropland, grazing areas and woodlands bordering the Sahara Desert. He takes over from Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, president of Mauritania. LARS LAESTADIUS, Adjunct Research Scientist, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences CHRIS REIJ, Sustainable land management specialist, World Resources Institute DENNIS GARRITY, Board Chair, Global EverGreening Alliance & Distinguished Senior Fellow, World Agroforestry (ICRAF), World Agroforestry (ICRAF) Buhari has the support of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and an international accelerator platform with…

Dec

05

2020

By The African Mirror

Uganda gives environmental consent to oil pipeline despite objections

SUSTAINABILITY

ELIAS BIRYABAREMA UGANDA has granted environmental approval for a $3.5 billion pipeline to export crude oil from western fields to the Indian Ocean coast in Tanzania, despite pressure from lobby groups. The planned pipeline, from fields co-owned by France's Total and China's CNOOC, would cross sensitive ecological systems including wildlife-rich areas, rivers and swampland that are catchments for Lake Victoria. International and local environmental groups including Global Witness say it poses unacceptable risks. But in a statement late on Thursday, Uganda's state-run National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) said it had issued a certificate of approval for the environmental and social…

Sep

18

2021

By The African Mirror

UN faces $100 trln shortfall in fight against climate change, inequality – report

SUSTAINABILITY

SIMON JESSOP GLOBAL goals tackling poverty, inequality, injustice and climate change face a $100 trillion funding shortfall and are likely to be missed unless 10% of global economic output is directed to the U.N. targets every year to 2030, a report on Friday said. The U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals set targets on everything from the environment to health and equality and have the support of all member states, yet the supply of finance from governments, investors, banks and companies to help meet them has consistently fallen short. Hampered by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the annual shortfall is now…

Jan

31

2021

By The African Mirror

Declaring war on e-waste

SUSTAINABILITY

LISA WITEPSKI THAT old cell phone that couldn’t keep up with new apps. The fridge that just got too small for your family’s needs. The printer that went on the fritz and wasn’t worth the money needed to fix it. We all have a small collection of electronic goods that no longer have a use – but Green Kid Enterprises is aiming to get them out of our drawers and garages, and give them new purpose. Here’s a frightening statistic: in 2019, around 53.6 million tons of electronic waste was produced – an average of around 7.3kg per person. More…

Sep

17

2021

By The African Mirror

UK climate envoy to visit South Africa to discuss helping shift from coal

SUSTAINABILITY

BRITAIN’S envoy to the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26) John Murton plans to visit South Africa ahead of the November talks, a spokesman in Pretoria said, to discuss helping it end an over-reliance on coal that makes it one of the world's leading carbon emitters. South African Environment Ministry spokesman Albi Modise said discussions were exploratory but would focus on cooperation in the transition from coal to renewables. Africa's most industrialised nation uses coal for 90% of its power needs. That has made it the world's 14th largest carbon dioxide emitter - pumping out 479 million tonnes equivalent in 2019…

Jan

30

2021

By The African Mirror

Use of dirty fuels is pervasive in Ghana. What can be done to transition to clean energy

SUSTAINABILITY

MANY Ghanaian households are energy poor. Households that use biomass like wood, grass, animal dung and charcoal are considered energy poor while households that use clean energy like electricity and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) are non-energy poor. ABDUL-WAKEEL KARAKARA ALHASSAN, PhD Candidate, School of Economics, University of Cape Coast In 2018 the International Energy Agency indicators showed that only 25% of Ghanaian households had access to clean energy for cooking. Lack of access to modern energy by households, to some extent, is both a cause and consequence of underdevelopment. In our study we set out to determine the factors that…

Jan

29

2021

By The African Mirror

Africa’s Great Green Wall aims for fresh growth spurt after sluggish start

SUSTAINABILITY

THIN LEI WIN GROWING up in a village in Burkina Faso, Georges Bazongo remembers his parents and neighbours cutting down trees each year to expand their farmland so they could "grow enough food for our families to eat". He also noticed some trees becoming drier in the drought-prone region, an indication too that the soil was deteriorating as heavy rains washed away its fertile layer. Some of his relatives moved to Ivory Coast in search of a better life, Bazongo, 48, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. But things started improving a decade ago when the government and environmental groups helped…