Gorillas, the largest of the great apes, are under renewed threat across the Congo Basin from Nigeria to the Albertine Rift: poaching for bushmeat, loss of habitat due to agricultural expansion, degradation of habitat from logging, mining and charcoal production are amongst these threats, in addition to natural epidemics such as ebola and the new
risk of diseases passed from humans to gorillas.
An Associate Laureate of the 2004 Rolex Awards, Jo Thompson was selected for her pioneering efforts to save the bonobo, an endangered ape that dwells only in the Congo Basin region of Africa. During the Congo's war years (1998-2002), Thompson's wildlife project maintainted an active presence within the country.
The broad picture of immunisation in Africa is one of excellent progress and enthusiastic energy, with amazing advances having been made since the turn of the century. There has been a large drop in mortality due to measles, and about a third of countries now use a three dose regimen of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis triple vaccine (DTP3), which provides coverage of at least 80% in all districts.
Examples from Cameroon and other countries highlight the capacity of non-wood forest products to provide employment, income and sustenance in times of crisis
The World Bank said on Tuesday it will buy 500,000 tons of carbon credits from a forest project replanting about 4,120 hectares destroyed by deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Replanting forests, which have been cut or burned, is central to the reduction in global greenhouse case emissions because they soak up vast amounts of carbon dioxide.
The global economic downturn has aggravated human rights violations and distracted attention from abuses, Amnesty International said on Thursday.
The world faced a grave danger that "rising poverty and desperate economic and social conditions could lead to political instability and mass violence," the rights group's secretary-general, Irene Khan, wrote in its annual report.
Agriculture, the biggest sector of the economy, is under serious threat as gradual sale and lease of large patches of lands to foreigners is being carried out in a very quick and secretive manner, the Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) said here on Sunday.
In July 1994, 500,000 to 800,000 Rwandans crossed the border into the North Kivu region of Zaire (now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC). During the first month after the influx, almost 50,000 refugees died; cholera was a major contributor.
