Agricultural pests are one of the key factors affecting small holder farmer production. Focus is normally put on invertebrate pests, but rodents can do severe damage to crops as well.
Dypsis decipiens - a highly threatened palm of Madagascar.
Mijoro Rakotoarinivo
The world’s media, which has in the past found Zambia uninteresting, are suddenly paying more attention to the impoverished nation, for all the wrong reasons.
Scientists’ success in producing synthetic vanilla flavouring means it is used 99% of the time. So why does the price of genuine beans keep rising?
Mauritius beachfront view with volcanic mountains. The basaltic lavas constituting these mountains formed no older than 9 million years ago.
Prof. Susan J. Webb, University of the Witwatersrand
In southern Africa there’s been a southward shift in the occurrence of tropical cyclones in the region. This is due to sea temperatures increasing as a result of global warming.
Very few African universities offer postgraduate degrees in astronomy. This gap in knowledge and training can be addressed through international partnerships and collaboration.
National electoral commissions are crucial in shaping public perceptions of how well democracy is working. Poor electoral management can enable fraud and produce political alienation.
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame is seen as having promoted economic growth at the expense of human rights.
Ruben Sprich/Reuters
To improve, African countries need to find a balance between political and economic matters. This is where leadership becomes particularly important. But this is currently lacking on the continent.
Hair speaks of the past, and of cultural heritage.
Steve Evans/Flickr
Hair has long been modified for aesthetic and other ends. But skewed power structures have meant that women, particularly women of colour, have borne the brunt of stereotyping and prejudice.
Coquerel’s sifaka is one of 23 lemur species now known to use mangroves.
Louise Jasper
More than 90% of Madagascar’s lemurs face extinction. Losing them will mean a loss of the valuable function they serve to the forests in which they live.
Citizen science will ensure that the skies have no limit when it comes to research, as ordinary people are encouraged to take part in simple acts of exploration.
Lemurs in danger… can international climate policy come to the rescue?
Maurits Vermeulen
“Biodiversity offsetting” – protecting animals and plants in one area to make up for negative impacts in another – is increasingly used by companies such as mining firms, as a way to boost their corporate…