Local but poor populations in many parts of Africa are increasingly being driven deeper into economic obscurity yet 60% of them still depend on agriculture for survival. Another 60% of that eke out a living by subsistence farming and animal husbandry.

The World Bank has been sitting on a secret report since April that says biofuels are responsible for the global food crisis; food prices have risen 75% because of the impact of the search for alternative fuels through the use of food products.

African civil society is calling for a moratorium on new biofuels investments in Africa amid concern that that the biofuels revolution will bring more food insecurity, higher food prices and hunger to the continent.

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Neutral driving, particularly at downhill road section, has become something of a fashion among public transport minibus drivers and general motrists as a means to cope with the ever-rising cost of fuel.

This is despite the fact that there is no real consensus as to whether neutral driving offers any savings.

Experts argue that neutral driving can inflict damage onto the brakes and engine and can result in the driver failing to control the vehicle leading to accidents. They argue that driving a vehicle downhill saves a negligible amount of fuel, and poses several risks especially if the vehicle is traveling at a speed over 40 kilometers per hour.

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The East African newspaper reported this week that the spat was simmered by three previous unannounced visits to Cairo by a Ugandan water ministry official to negotiate a ’secret deal’ for Egypt to draw more of the Nile waters in contravention of existing multilateral agreements.

Dar es Salaam then demanded to see a copy of the political arrangement between Uganda, which shares Lake Victoria - which feeds the Nile - with Kenya and Tanzania, and Egypt whose economy is largely dependent on waters of the River Nile that drains into the Mediterranean.

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Radio, as a means of communication, is very personal, and can deliver messages right to the hearts of listeners.

Community radio can be very empowering to communities because it can inspire people to look at their needs, discuss their problems and look for solutions in a conversational manner.

Because of its conversational quality, community radio can make people become intimately involved with their own individual reality. Oral communication is deeply rooted in many African societies, and community radio can easily tap into this aspect of lived reality, and influence it to propagate environmentally friendly solutions.

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In Zimbabwe, bicycles are increasingly becoming popular, albeit for a different reason: money and economics. With a current world record inflation of 11,2 million percent and rising on a daily basis, many people in Zimbabwe are struggling to make ends meet with very meager salaries.

As a means to cope with high transport costs (a product of the Zimbabwe’s hyperinflationary economy), many workers have taken to bicycling in their hordes. Previously stigmatized as a sign of poverty, bicycles have taken on a new form as a means of affordable transportation to work.

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The two tribes lived there in a plum lakeside community when the Sahara Desert, as we know it, was a lush, green country, but were separated by effects of climate change over a time line of 1,000 years.

The mystery of the lost tribes of the green Sahara has been unraveled by a joint team of archaeologists and palaeontologists who were out on a dinosaur-hunting expedition in the Ténéré Desert in present-day Niger but instead stumbled on a large, Stone Age graveyard.

Now whatever little may be known about the Kiffian and Tenerian tribes, thought to have lived in the Sahara between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago are bone harpoons, earthen pots, among other artifacts.

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As a means to cope with erratic electricity power cuts which are undoubtedly a defining characteristic of the ongoing socio-economic crisis in Zimbabwe, many Zimbabweans living in urban areas have resorted to using the tsotso stove because of its low labour and energy saving characteristics.

Traditionally, rural as well as low-income households have always depended on fuelwood which usually chews up loads of firewood, thereby endangering the environment.

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Now experts are warning of the danger to humanity this lifestyle may be posing. Most of these diseases, identified in medical terms as zoonotic because of their ability to jump from animal to man, have been labeled as “emerging infectious diseases” or EIDs.

Over 60 percent of the 1,415 infectious diseases currently known to modern medicine are capable of infecting both humans and animals. Most of these diseases originated in animals and now infect people and include viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa and helminths, with 175 pathogenic species associated with diseases considered to be ‘emerging’.

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She gathered all her inner strength and courage to cross a crocodile infested river near her home deep in the arid Masai warrior tribe country with her father and her wannabe husband in hot pursuit.

Betty Lason, now 17 and still in primary school, said recently that she vividly remembers the incident six years ago because she executed her plan one evening after returning to her new husband’s home from day-long sheep and goat herding in the bush under the scorching sun.

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After months of a bitter and violent political dispute, Zimbabwe’s political protagonists have decided to take to the negotiating table.

Besides resolving the country’s longstanding socio-economic problems, the ongoing political talks in Zimbabwe will go a long way to start redressing the damage that has been inflicted onto the environment over the past decade.

A botched government led land reform programme resulted in the unmonitored movement of people and the untoward cutting down of trees and an increase in the poaching of endangered animal species.

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Eldoret is the bread basket of Kenya’s athletics elite and famous runners, including Kipchoge Keino who made history by winning the east African country’s first gold medal in the 1500 meters run at the Mexico City Games.

But the town is also home to Hanna Jeruto, a 24 year old HIV+ mother who exclusively breastfeeds her 4 month old son, Kipruto. Kipruto, however, is HIV negative and when she was delivering at the provincial hospital doctors had advised her not to breastfeed him.

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So it doesn’t come as a real surprise that we often end up forgetting the little people. Of course, whenever Africa is forced into the category of “little people,” there may just be a greater problem at hand.

Thankfully, despite the lack of attention that anyone in the world seems to be giving them, environmentally, Africa is taking matters into its own hands.

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How much wind blows from Nouakchott to Natal, and how much of this is ever utilized as an alternative energy source? How much water flowing in the Zambezi is used to power villages in Zambia and Zimbabwe; and how much more of the great Nile waters that flow into the Mediterranean can sustainably be harnessed to run corn mills in Nakuru and cotton ginneries in Jinja and Khartoum or fisheries in Cairo?

And now some bold African should emulate John McCain. He may be better known for his tenacity inside the muddle of US politics than for his expertise on the quest for cleaner energy sources. But many surely gaped at the figures he offered for a battery to power America’s engines in the wake of the oil price burst recently.

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(Yes, I ate at McDonalds!  I get one milkshake there about every four years!  Yes, I know it’s wrong!  I was having a really bad day!  I’m sorry!)

UniqEco is just one of the companies making crafts out of recycled flip flops, but I heart them the most.  The company was started in response to an ecological nightmare - discarded flip flops washing up on Kenyan beaches in vast numbers.  (Apparently, y’all flip flop wearers aren’t that concerned about what happens to your footwear - but since they don’t actually provide any protection for your feet, it kind of makes sense that you wouldn’t notice they were missing.)  The invading flip flop armada kept turtle mamas from laying eggs and baby turtles, if any, from getting back into the ocean.

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In spite of the sweltering heat, smallholder farmers in this border district of Zimbabwe can cheer about the black-eyed beans. The beans – a new crop in the area - are small, creamy white, with a black mark at the sprouting point, making them easy to recognize.

From the way they cook to the way they sell, black-eyed beans have proved a big hit among the small farmers in this district, traditionally known for growing maize, groundnuts, cotton and sunflowers.

In 2002, USAID’s Linkages for the Economic Advancement of the Disadvantaged (LEAD Program) sub-contracted VeCO, a non-governmental organization, to provide 1,250 farmers with the necessary extension support services, skills and resources to produce both black-eyed beans and Macia sorghum, crops which are drought tolerant. The overall objective was to reduce food insecurity, improve food intake with a new edible crop, and provide a new source of income for poor smallholders in drought prone regions.

Nyarai Njenge, 35, one of the beneficiary farmers, did not know anything about black-eyed beans prior to 2002. But, now, as most of the beneficiary farmers, she knowledgeably recounts the nutritional, income and food security benefits of the crop.

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They are selling handcrafted, original bracelets made from sand in Ghana, Africa to further support the humanitarian efforts of Relief International, an independent, non-profit organization providing necessary medical care, counseling and educational courses to thousands of women and children in Darfur. Relief International’s programs are essential to the recovery of this war-torn country.

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Every year an area of rainforest the size of England and Wales is cut down. This leaves local people homeless, drives animals and plants to extinction and releases more CO2 emissions (which cause climate change), than all of the world’s planes, trains and automobiles. Tropical deforestation is an issue that affects us all. ~The Rainforest Foundation

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And no, it’s not global warming. It’s the myriad humanitarian crises that plague the third world.

That I am writing about it here though, obviously speaks to a link to one of PlanetSave’s main topics; climate science.

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Many thanks to our friends at ZapRoot for featuring Sam Aola Ooko’s post on Chinese importation of African ivory on their latest show (above). We’re big fans… no one does indepth coverage with a healthy dose of humor better. Keep an eye out for more from ZapRoot on Thursdays: we’re going to start featuring them regularly on the GO Media blog network.

The system uses lightweight formwork panels, much like those used for poured concrete walls. Once erected, the forms are filled with mortar (concrete without stone) which can be hand-mixed and hand-placed, or which can be mechanically mixed and pumped into place. Typically, the formwork can be removed the day after the mortar is poured. The result is a smooth finish material, little more than a roof is needed to complete the building.

On the downside, this material uses 250 kilograms of portland cement per cubic meter (about 420 pounds per cubic yard), making it fundamentally the same as a concrete building with an enormous carbon footprint stemming from the extensive use of cement in these buildings.

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