This discussion paper from The Corner House sets out some lessons for political strategy suggested by the experience of climate change campaigning over the past 15 years. It outlines the dangers faced by advocacy NGOs of becoming 'patzers' (blunderers) and clients of more sophisticated political actors.

Global Voices Online reports that potential mining activity in Zambia’s Lower Zambezi National Park is threatening its ecosystem and that of the adjacent Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe. The two national parks, rich in wildlife and one of the last bastions of huge elephant populations in Southern Africa, are situated less than 200 kilometres downstream from the hydroelectric Kariba Dam.

A group of smallholder farmers in Mali have turned to the courts to try to recover land they say they have lost to big private investors. The legal action comes as foreign investors are losing interest in Mali due to political instability and an armed rebellion in the north. 'We have laid a complaint against the agricultural land grabs that have hit so many smallholders,' said Lamine Coulibaly, a member of the National Coordination of Peasant Organisations, which is resisting the large-scale acquisition of agricultural land by foreign investors.

A new report by Oxfam, a leading international relief agency, warns that climate change will increase the frequency of large spikes in global food prices, leading to more hungry people around the world. Besides climate change, rapid population growth, higher per capita incomes, rapid urbanization, changing diets in developing countries and rising demand for biofuel feedstocks, are exerting unprecedented pressure on the global food system.

Uganda has failed to carry out a comprehensive environmental and social impact study in the Albertine Graben oil exploration and production area, National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) Director, Dr. Tom Okurut, admitted during a September 6 meeting in Kampala. 'This study was supposed to be the first thing we did before any activities began. But we did not have the money to do it. Now that we have the money, we are doing it and it will be completed by December 2012,' Dr. Okurut told some 200 researchers, government staff and civil society representatives at a public meeting hosted by Nature Uganda at the Uganda Museum.

The Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (Zela) and villagers living along Save River are seeking a court order to bar three diamond mining companies in Marange district from polluting water sources. In a High Court application last week, Zela and the villagers alleged that Anjin Investments, Marange Resources and Diamond Mining Corporation (DMC) were polluting Save, Singwizi and Odzi rivers with sewage, chemicals and metal deposits.

A presidential aspirant is among dozens of influential politicians and businessmen who own land on which slums in parts of Nairobi sit. The slum dwellers are going to court this week to lay claim to the land on which they have lived for years citing public interest. In what promises to be an epic judicial battle between the title holders and the slum dwellers, the group will also be claiming that the titles to these plots are no longer valid.

Thousands of people have been left homeless in the Nigerian city of Lagos after a recent government-led eviction of an almost 200-year old shantytown. During last week's eviction of the Makoko slum, home to about 100,000 people, residents were given only 72 hours to evacuate before men in speedboats were sent to destroy their houses.

The new government of Senegal has cancelled the licences of 29 foreign fishing trawlers, demanding that they offload their catches in the capital Dakar before leaving the west African country's territorial waters. The dramatic move on Tuesday by fisheries minister Pape Diouf follows growing resentment at overfishing and alleged corruption of the previous government's licencing system. It is expected to defuse threats by Senegal's 52,000 small-scale inshore fishermen to take direct action against the owners of foreign trawlers.

With the United Nations Climate Change Conference less than four months away, African countries need to present convincing arguments and successful adaptation projects to attract competitive funding for adjusting to changes in global weather patterns, climate finance experts say. 'Africa needs to focus on developing strong arguments for COP 18 and beyond based on clear evidence,' climate change and finance expert, and chief executive of OneWorld, Belynda Petrie, told IPS. The 18th Conference of Parties or COP 18 will take place in Doha, Qatar in late November.

Government investment, rather than privatisation or international aid, offers the best solution for water services in Ghana.

Despite the rhetoric, the Nigerian government has no intention of reforming its oil industry to benefit the people. Nigeria remains the global poster child for “resource curse.”

The revelation of gargantuan levels of corruption in the government’s fuel subsidy programme is sparking a groundswell of activity among the opposition and civil society groups. Opposition politicians, civic activists and trade unionists are joining forces this month to demand action against grand corruption at the heart of government. They promise it will be their biggest show of strength on Nigeria’s streets since protests in January that forced the government to back down on its plans to abolish the fuel subsidy scheme.

A virtual lecture hall, enabling lectures to be streamed to university campuses from around the world, aims to plug the gap in scientific teaching staff at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), which has suffered years of brain drain. The Virtual Lecture Hall (VLH) was launched last month (29 June) at UZ’s College of Health Sciences (UZ-CHS) and Faculties of Science and Veterinary Science, by the UK-based Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) and Econet Wireless, the mobile communications company funding the project.

Madagascar's deposed ex-president Marc Ravalomanana has arrived in the Seychelles ahead of landmark talks with current leader Andry Rajoelina. The 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), which is mediating in the crisis, is expected to bring the two men face to face on Wednesday. SADC has set a 31 July deadline for the two rivals to settle their differences so that a timetable for elections in Madagascar can be unveiled next week.

The Forum of National Human Rights Organisations (FONADH), an umbrella organisation of about 15 non-governmental organisations, has strongly condemned the repression of a recent peaceful demonstration by workers of the Copper Mining Company of Mauritania (MCM) that led to the death of one worker and injuries to several others. In a statement issued in Nouakchott, FONADH demanded that the authorities should 'clarify the circumstances of the death of Mohamed Ould Mechdhoufi.' It demanded that those responsible for the death of the worker be brought to justice, saying 'FONADH considers them responsible for the consequences of this barbaric act and demands the immediate release of detained workers'.

Senegal stopped renewing agreements allowing European fishing vessels in its waters in 2006, but now an expanding artisanal fleet and local industrial boats enjoying exclusivity under lax regulations are being blamed for malpractice and degrading the country’s main economic and food resource. 'In terms of environmental degradation, the responsibility is shared. Artisanal fishermen are responsible for habitat destruction. Although industrial vessels and foreign ships are often blamed, artisanal fishermen contribute hugely to the disappearance of species,' said Moustapha Thiam, the director of Senegal’s Maritime Fishing Authority, a Fisheries Ministry department.

A senior official in Uganda’s Internal Security Organization (ISO), Major Herbert Asiimwe Muramagi, has been named in a complex land dispute in oil-rich Hoima District where, some locals allege, last year he bought 1,200 hectares from an entity that had no right to sell it.

Expanding markets from Nigeria to China are fuelling a voracious appetite for more food. A big part of that demand will have to be met by palm oil, a low-cost fat coveted by food manufacturers and a mainstay of cooking across the tropics. Since 2000, world demand for palm oil has doubled. Millions of hectares of forest in top producers Indonesia and Malaysia have been turned over to plantations. That has prompted dismay among environmentalists and brought about tough new rules that are forcing planters to look elsewhere. One of those places is Cameroon, a central African state whose 20 million people live on an average of $3 a day.

Cameroon has joined a Congo Basin initiative that uses satellite imagery to monitor changes in forest cover in an effort to curb deforestation and help Central African countries access carbon finance. Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Republic of Congo and Central African Republic (CAR) signed an agreement with the French government and geo-information provider Astrium Services ahead of UN climate talks in South Africa late last year. Cameroon followed this June, gaining a license to use images from the SPOT satellite Earth Observation System which could assist in protecting its rich forest reserve.