The Congo Basin’s forests and peatlands are a major component of Earth’s life-support systems, and it is a key supplier of vital minerals needed to build a low carbon economy. The case for the people of the Congo to benefit from not exploiting these resources is irrefutable.

Few people, if asked to name the most strategic countries in the world, would place the Democratic Republic of Congo at the top of the list. But the natural resources of the DRC will be critical to the existential battle to save the planet.

KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 29): The Energy and Natural Resources Ministry (KeTSA) has achieved a new milestone in forestry management with the adoption of the Malaysian Forestry Policy 2020 which involved consultations among the three regions in the country, namely the Peninsula, Sabah and Sarawak.

Its Minister Datuk Dr Shamsul Anuar Nasarah, in a statement today, said the policy outlined a clear objective for the forestry sector to face new challenges at the domestic and international levels.

Samuel A. Jinapor is a politician, a dedicated member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), and a qualified Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ghana.

He graduated from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, and specialised in Biomedical Physics.

His intellectual thirst and political aspirations led him to enrol to be trained as a lawyer – a goal he accomplished successfully. Consequently, he was called to the Ghana Bar in 2012.

In the forests of the Congo Basin, rising temperatures and erratic rainfall are adversely affecting wildlife resources. The availability of edible mushrooms and caterpillars has fallen by about 80%. This is according to a study published on 5 January 2021 by the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

The Council of Ministers has decided to annul the prakas which were previously issued to carve out roughly 30ha in total size from an area currently encompassed by Boeung Tamok Lake on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

The reversal came following a direct order from Prime Minister Hun Sen.

The Institute for Collective Action of the Erasmus University Rotterdam is offering two PhD positions to candidates who would like to pursue their PhD studies in the area of collective action. The focus will be on an in-depth micro-analysis of internal functioning of two different types of “institutions for collective action” (ICA).

About the positions

The relationship between size and heterogeneity of both members and resources and their impact on the institutional design of ICA will be studied for:

UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre vigilant on potential impacts of oil and gas exploration in Namibia and Botswana on the Tsodila and Okavango Delta World Heritage properties.

• Reconnaissance Energy Africa, an oil and gas company with headquarters in Canada, has recently begun exploratory drilling in northern Namibia.
• Conservationists and local communities are concerned over the potential environmental impact that oil and gas extraction could have on such an important ecosystem.
• Northern Namibia and Botswana have a number of interconnected watersheds including the Okavango Delta – the potential for pollutants to enter watercourses and spread throughout the region are a particular concern.

On December 21, Reconnaissance Energy Af

The Ministry of Environment on December 28 issued a report detailing crackdowns on illegal activities in protected natural areas and biodiversity conservation corridors.

According to the report, forest rangers responded to 8,917 cases of natural resource crimes over the past 12 months, an increase of 3,442 cases, or 63 per cent, over last year’s 5,475 reported incidents.

Rangers had logged 27,588 patrols for the year, up from 24,048 the previous year, but the number of cases sent to courts for prosecution had declined from 631 to 605.

Five civil society organisations urged the government to take action against Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL), a Vietnamese agribusiness firm, for alleged land clearing activities on areas allocated to indigenous communities in Ratanakkiri province’s Andong Meas district.

However, provincial authorities denied the accusation, saying the local community welcomed the money that had poured into the area due to the presence of HAGL.

Yang Zeqiang's boat chugs across the Yangtze ferrying a few people and sacks of grain -- his new source of income after all fishing was halted along China's longest river in the name of environmental protection.

As a boy, Yang remembers seeing his father and grandfather head out in the early morning dark to earn a living fishing the upper Yangtze in China's southwest.

"I grew up here on the Yangtze River, where my family have been fishing for generations," said 52-year-old Yang, who also fished for two decades until the ban.