South Africa News

In 2023, Mongabay is officially expanding its coverage of environmental and conservation news in Africa by launching a news bureau dedicated to producing our renowned and award-winning brand of journalism…

CAPE TOWN — The endangered African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) could be extinct in the wild in just over a decade. To protect the bird’s food supply and slow its population…

On Sept. 4, African Parks, a multinational nonprofit conservation organization, announced that it had purchased Platinum Rhino, John Hume’s controversial intensive rhino breeding operation, and intended to rewild the more…

STEENBERG’S COVE, South Africa — For more than 40 years, the sea has been Anthony Stofberg’s livelihood. Stofberg, 62, is a fisherman, just like his father, his grandfather and his…

MAKHASANENI, South Africa — In a village in the rolling hills of grassland, woodlands and scattered homesteads in South Africa’s picturesque KwaZulu-Natal province, a broil between traditional leaders and community…

MASVINGO, Zimbabwe — The weight of the world felt as if it was crushing Nyemudzai Jakiti, a single mother in Zimbabwe’s southern city of Masvingo, when she found herself out…

On May 1 this year, an online auction for a controversial captive-breeding project that comes with one in eight of all southern white rhinos in the world ended in a…

CAPE TOWN — Evidence of mice attacking albatross chicks on Marion Island, midway between South Africa and Antarctica, makes for grim viewing. One video, captured at a colony of endangered…

“South Africa loses between 1,000 and 2,000 pangolins each year to fence electrocutions. This far overshadows the number of individuals that are illegally poached and trafficked,” says Dr Darren Pietersen,…

Every night, somewhere unseen across the vast, semidesert and dry savanna habitat of Southern Africa, the continent’s deadliest cat emerges to hunt. Black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) are ideally suited for…

Cameroon cocoa growers plant fruit trees to slow forest conversion Cocoa farmers in part of Cameroon’s Centre region have begun planting fruit trees alongside their cocoa trees. Agroforestry promoters hope…

MPUMALANGA, South Africa — Living surrounded by 22 coal mines, women in the small town of Carolina illustrate both the urgency and the difficulty of a just transition to clean…

One dead, four injured as Ghana gold miner moves to evict artisanal miners BENSO, Ghana — Police killed one person and injured four others while attempting to clear trespassing miners…

Environmental and social impact assessments (ESIA) have become an important tool for decision-makers around the world to explore and understand the impacts of proposed development projects on the wider ecosystem.…

DRC community accuses Canadian miner of encroaching into their forests WALIKALE, Democratic Republic of Congo — For the past 10 years, a Canadian-registered company, Alphamin Bisie, has been mining tin…

South Africa community stands up to ‘bully’ platinum miner GA-NGWEPE, South Africa — The South African government has given a platinum miner until March 1 to discuss compensation to communities…

Not far up the hill, after a right turn off the main road that leads from the Zulu town of Mtubatuba in the province of KwaZulu-Natal into one of South…

Residents of a village in northeastern South Africa, displaced to make way for one of the country’s largest open-pit coal mines in 2007, are suffering from long-term collective trauma, with…

CAPE TOWN — Seabird ranger Eduard Drost was busy with a routine inspection in an African penguin colony off the South African coast in 2021 when he noticed a troubling…

As the thorny question of climate responsibility and funding for damages takes center stage at the COP27 summit in Egypt, one aspect of climate finance remains understudied: climate research funding.…

Two African penguin chicks have emerged from their nest beneath a boulder at a site in South Africa where conservationists have used lifelike decoy penguins and broadcast penguin calls to…

South Africa approves platinum mine despite community concerns GA-NGWEPE, South Africa — South Africa’s minister of mineral resources and energy has approved a platinum mine in the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve,…

Groups demand end to Chinese gold mine operating inside DRC reserve ITURI PROVINCE, Democratic Republic of Congo — Civil society groups have condemned what they say is illegal gold mining…

In the first nine months of this year, poachers have killed 190 rhinos in state-run protected areas in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. That’s one rhino killed every 35 hours. Most…

From oil to diamonds, offshore prospecting looms over South African fishing town DORINGBAAI, South Africa — On Sept. 23 and 24, 150 women in the small fishing town of Doringbaai,…

Unstudied at sea until recently, this huge, fast-moving ocean current may hold a key to resolving climate change uncertainties. But doing remote research in southern oceans poses financial, data gathering, and unexpected challenges.

LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Three chimpanzees have been kidnapped and are being held for ransom after intruders broke into a primate sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo.…

As freshwater “Day Zero” looms for the climate change-stressed Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, home to 1.28 million people, officials face a difficult choice: risk failure of short-term groundwater supplies or seek long-term solutions.

MAPUTO — Authorities in Mozambique have arrested two men for allegedly attempting to sell rhino horn in the country’s capital, Maputo. Hilario Lole, a spokesperson for the National Criminal Investigation…

How do you raise funds for wildlife conservation in the most 21st century of ways? Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. In the northeastern forests of South Africa, Wild Funds Tomorrow, a…