BOLIVIA: Businesses Take On the Green Challenge
By Bernarda Claure*
LA PAZ - What do Bolivia's largest textile mill, an organic cacao cooperative and an indigenous-run tourist hostel in the Amazon have in common? The answer lies in the path, shaky but inspiring, that they are all taking towards sustainable production.
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PERU: Native Groups Protest Laws Facilitating Sales of Land
By Milagros Salazar
LIMA - Defending the state of emergency declared in three provinces in Peru to crack down on protests by indigenous communities against a law facilitating the sale of their community-owned lands, Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo said the government was safeguarding "the rights of the great majority of Peruvians."
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DEVELOPMENT-ZAMBIA: Sharing the Copper Windfall
By Danstan Kaunda
LUSAKA - Australian mining giant Equinox Minerals is developing the Lumwana Copper Mine (LCM) to take advantage of strong prices for copper on the international market. When it opens later this year, the mine will be the largest in Africa, but critics say Zambia's share of the profits of minerals is smaller than it should be.
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Q&A: 'If You Feed the Land, It Will Feed You Back'
Interview with UNCCD Executive Secretary Luc Gnacadja
BONN - Luc Gnacadja, who took over as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) last October, is a man with a mission -- a mission that goes beyond explaining that his job is not to battle deserts.
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DEVELOPMENT-UGANDA: Looming Problems With Kampala's Water
By Joshua Kyalimpa
KAMPALA - The water supply for two million residents of the Ugandan capital Kampala is threatened by a combination of ill-planned urbanisation and changing rainfall patterns.
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SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Mekong Flood Warning System Fails
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - As communities along the Mekong River face some of the worst floods in decades, a flood warning network that combines scientific and local knowledge is under scrutiny. Activists say it has failed its first major test.
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ENVIRONMENT-CAMEROON: Operation Green Sahel Resumes
By Tamfu Hanson
GAROUA - "I have come to plant trees -- that is why I have left my jacket and tie in Yaoundé" declared Cameroon's Minister of Forest and Wildlife, Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, as he launched the tree planting at a small village near the town of Kousseri, in the north of the country. In four minutes, the minister and his staff planted a hundred trees as a bulwark against rapidly encroaching desert.
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DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Retailer Creates Jobs With Green Practices
By Johan Eybers
JOHANNESBURG - Seven years ago, 54 subsistence farmers in the Umbumbulu district on the KwaZulu-Natal coast of South Africa were struggling to feed their families. They could barely pay their children’s school fees.
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PARAGUAY: Concerns, Tension Rise with Water Level in Yacyretá Dam
By David Vargas
ENCARNACIÓN, Paraguay - Hundreds of people living in the Paraguayan border city of Encarnación are worried about flooding as the result of a rise in water level in the Yacyretá hydroelectric dam, an issue that is also causing tension between Paraguay and Argentina.
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DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: People, Not Electricity, Make Growth Possible
By Najum Mushtaq
NAIROBI - Conventional wisdom holds that a shortage of affordable and reliable energy is a key factor in perpetuating low levels of development in countries like Kenya. But the country's chief energy regulator argues that Kenya has all the power it needs, and growth in generation need not precede growth in demand.
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