Big dams have frequently imposed high social and environmental costs and long-term economic tradeoffs, such as lost fisheries and tourism potential and flooded agricultural and forest land. According to the independent World Commission on Dams, most projects have failed to compensate affected people for their losses and to adequately mitigate environmental impacts.

The seizure of large commercial farms - almost all white-owned - has continued despite the formation of a unity government in Zimbabwe. The country's farm workers say they are the biggest losers. The workers say that Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders must intervene immediately to stop the violence against them.

Oxfam Novib wants to come to grips with the land issue – trying to understand the implications of the capital-rich countries and companies endeavouring to purchase or lease large tracts of agricultural land in resource-rich developing States. Some general questions that have come up in internal debates start even from the premises whether this is a good or a bad thing.

Dialoubé is in a region of sparse savannah in north-western Mali, near the Mauritania border. A cold, dry harmattan wind whistles through the fence surrounding the nursery full of young Acacia senegalensis seedlings, about 100 metres away from the villagers' mud houses. Further out lies a 50-hectare plantation established in 2007: part of Mali's Acacia Senegal Plantation Project which aims to plant 6,000 hectares of acacias in four villages in the area.

In Malawi, where aids agencies estimate 120,000 children are HIV-positive, school teachers are finding themselves increasingly in the frontline of the epidemic. The National AIDS Council recently carried out a study that found "teachers had not received enough HIV/ART education to carry out their supportive role in paediatric and adolescent care and support".

A project in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, is creatively using "marginal water" to ease water scarcity while helping residents provide food and earn a living. Water scarcity has led urban farmers to turn to treated waste water to grow food within the city limits.

The South African Department of Environmental Affairs has expressed a “firm intent” to complete the country’s national climate change policy white paper by the end of 2010.

When Nairobi was founded in 1899, it took its name from what the Maasai called the place: Ewassi Nyirobi, "cool waters." A century later, the river has something stuck in its throat: millions of plastic bags threaten to choke it.

A team of researchers combine maps, satellite images and participatory mapping techniques to develop an accurate picture of land use among pastoralists in southern Ethiopia.

Four of the world’s largest and fastest-growing carbon emitters will meet in New Delhi this month ahead of a January 31 deadline for countries to submit their action plans to combat climate change.

The controversial Copenhagen Accord, secretly drafted by countries of the Global North with the approval of a few handpicked emerging economies, including South Africa, is green washed capitalism with thinly veiled energy security at its heart, writes Michael Pressend.

Grasslands have vast untapped potential to mitigate climate change by absorbing and storing Carbon Dioxide (CO2), according to a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga appeared headed for a fresh round of wrangling after the President pulled out of a tree-planting exercise in Mau Forest.

Addis Ababa is selling vast fertile swaths to international companies in effort to introduce large-scale commercial agriculture.

China is now the world's largest producer of, hydropower, with Chinese firms now building 19 of the 24 largest hydropower plants currently under construction worldwide, and roughly half of all the world's large dams are within its borders, writes Jacqui Dixon.

More than half of Chad’s nine million people live near sites potentially contaminated with unexploded ordnance (UXO) or landmines, according to the national demining centre. The government says more than 100 people are killed or wounded every year by landmines or UXO; aid organizations cover the bulk of medical care and rehabilitation for mine victims, according to NGO Handicap International.

Nearly one-third of all water-related disasters occur in Africa. The second issue of Joto Afrika considers the relationship between climate change, the greater incidence of extreme weather events, such as drought and flooding, and the increasing scarcity of water on the African continent.

Zimbabwe has halted a controversial sale of 300 000 carats of diamonds, but blamed bureaucratic hold-ups rather than a scandal over rights abuses by the military in the diamond fields.

In order to collect information for his next report, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food launches a call for information on cases that illustrate the links among security of land tenure, access to land, and the right to food. He also intends to organize regional consultations.

The World Bank, the IMF and the Ethiopian regime annual development reports have highlighted on Ethiopia’s higher GDP growth rate over the past 10 years, yet the UN development index and other indices [Misery Index] that measure the well-being of people have declined both absolutely and relative to many other African countries. The paradox of acute poverty and declining well-being of Ethiopians is found in various parts of the country and is pervasive across demographic groups.