#african-news — Public Fediverse posts

https://www.europesays.com/africa/243514/ Flash Floods Ravage Darika Village in Mandera East | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #news #politics

https://www.europesays.com/africa/243003/ Somalia Skills Program Launched in Addis Ababa with LG, KOICA, UNDP and Elman Peace | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #news #politics

https://www.europesays.com/africa/241988/ Somalia Skills Program Launched in Addis Ababa with LG, KOICA, UNDP and Elman Peace | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #news #politics

https://www.europesays.com/africa/241622/ Government Begins Land Acquisition for Nithi Bridge Reconstruction | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #news #politics

https://www.europesays.com/africa/239346/ Marsabit Joins Kenya-Ethiopia Livestock Vaccination Drive | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #news #politics

https://www.europesays.com/africa/238879/ Marsabit Joins Kenya-Ethiopia Livestock Vaccination Drive | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #news #politics

https://www.europesays.com/africa/238174/ ODPP Tightens Noose on Human Traffickers | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #HornOfAfrica #news #politics

https://www.europesays.com/africa/232663/  EAC Pushes for the Standardisation of Fuel Tanker Calibration East Africa | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #HornOfAfrica #news #politics #Tanzania

https://www.europesays.com/africa/232457/ Ruling Prosperity Party Ramps Up Campaigning in Ethiopia’s Somali Region | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #news #politics

https://www.europesays.com/africa/229707/ Strengthening Pet Adoption and Responsible Pet Care in Kenya | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #news #politics

https://www.europesays.com/uk/?p=950350 European Union Urges Inclusive Political Dialogue in Somalia | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #Economy #EU #Europe #European #EuropeanUnion #HornOfAfrica #News #Politics

European Union Urges Inclusive Political Dialogue in Somalia | Dawan Africa https://www.byteseu.com/?p=2007217 #africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #analysis #BreakingNews #business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #Europe #HornOfAfrica #News #Politics

https://www.europesays.com/africa/225055/ IGAD States Meet in Jigjiga to Discuss Regional Displacement Crisis | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #news #politics

https://www.europesays.com/africa/218459/ Ethiopia’s media freedoms decline sharply as Tigray report warns of worsening conditions | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #news #politics

https://www.europesays.com/africa/216183/ U.S., Morocco integrate Link-16 capability during African Lion 26 planning event > U.S. Air Forces in Europe #100thAirRefuelingWing #31stFighterWing #39thAirBaseWing #3rdAirForce #435thAirExpeditionaryWing #435thAirGroundOperationsWing #48thFighterWing #501stCombatSupportWing #52ndFighterWing #86thAirliftWing #AFAFRICA #Africa #AfricanLion #AfricanNews #AFRICOM #Europe #Morocco #SETAFAF #USAFE

https://www.europesays.com/africa/214026/ Ethiopia Nears June Vote Amid Doubts on Competition | Dawan Africa #Africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #Analysis #BreakingNews #Business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #news #politics

https://www.alojapan.com/1449043/djibouti-japan-undp-launch-rural-electrification-project-dawan-africa/ Djibouti, Japan, UNDP Launch Rural Electrification Project | Dawan Africa #africa #AfricanBusiness #AfricanCulture #AfricanDevelopment #AfricanEconomy #AfricanEducation #AfricanEntertainment #AfricanHealthcare #AfricanMedia #AfricanNews #AfricanPolitics #AfricanSociety #AfricanSports #AfricanTechnology #analysis #BreakingNews #business #ContinentalNews #CurrentAffairs #DawanAfrica #EastAfrica #economy #HornOfAfrica #Japan #JapanNews #Japanese #JapaneseNews #news #politics

#AfricanNews accounts to follow:

➡️ @thecontinent - Pan-African online newspaper run by non-profit based in South Africa
➡️ @TUKOcoke - Kenyan online news site
➡️ @ZekuZelalem - Award-winning investigative reporter covering Ethiopia and Horn of Africa
➡️ @beverly_ochieng - Security & media analyst focused on Africa
➡️ @teachersupdates - Education news in Kenya
➡️ @index - Business news in Mozambique

#Africa #African #Kenya #Ethiopia

Goliath Frog Conraua goliath

Goliath Frog Conraua goliath

Red List Status: Endangered

Extant (resident): Cameroon; Equatorial Guinea

Presence Uncertain: Gabon

Goliath #Frogs are the largest frog in the world and can grow as large as a domestic cat. These muscle-bound #amphibians lift heavy rocks to build nests and protect their young. They face extinction from #palmoil #deforestation and human persecution including hunting.

Their nesting and reproduction is hugely dependent upon access to clean, fast-flowing rivers – for this reason the encroachment of industrial scale palm oil, cocoa and timber deforestation and p0llution and #pesticides of rivers are direct threats to the existence of the goliath #frog. Help them every time you shop in the supermarket and #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife

https://youtu.be/hANPCRD1dmE

Goliath #Frogs 🐸💚 are #endangered in #Gabon 🇬🇦 #Cameroon 🇨🇲 and Equatorial Guinea 🇬🇶 by #palmoil #deforestation 🌴🔥 and #hunting. Help them every time you shop and #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🩸☠️🚜🔥⛔️ #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2023/10/29/goliath-frog-conraua-goliath/

Goliath #Frogs are the largest #frogs in the world 🐸🤯💚🫶 These muscly #amphibians 🏋️🪨 lift heavy rocks to build nests. They face #extinction from #palmoil. Fight for them when you #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🩸🤮🧐⛔️ #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2023/10/29/goliath-frog-conraua-goliath/

Appearance & Behaviour

The goliath frog gets their name from the fact that they are the largest extant frog in the world weighing between 600 grams to 3.2 kilos. Male and females appear almost the same with sexual dimorphism minimal. Despite their abnormally large size, their eggs and tadpoles are a similar size as other frogs. The skin on the back and upper side of their body is a rusty emerald green colour with limbs and underside a yellowish orange hue. They have excellent hearing but don’t possess a vocal sack, meaning that they don’t have a mating call – as do many other frog species.

The Goliath Frog is adversely affected by the loss of forest habitat for agriculture (including the creation of new cocoa plantations, banana plantations, and palm oil plantations), logging and human settlements.

Read more

Geographic range

These frogs are typically found near fast flowing rivers with sandy bottoms in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. They may have now gone extinct in Gabon. They prefer clear and oxygenated water from clean rivers and streams in densely forested and humid parts of the rainforest. They typically stay in rivers during the heat of the day and will emerge onto land during the night time.

Goliath frogs don’t survive well in heavily degraded and deforested areas and prefer undisturbed forest, streams and fast-flowing rivers far away from villages.

Diet

Goliath tadpoles feed on a single aquatic plant Dicraeia warmingii which is found only in areas of clean oxygenated water close to waterfalls and fast-flowing rapids. This explains their range and serious vulnerability to extinction.

Adult goliath frogs are less fussy and will feed on multiple food sources including: baby turtles, young snakes, small mammals, bats, crustaceans, mollusks, fish, dragonflies, locusts, insects, spiders and worms.

Mating & reproduction

Unlike most other frogs, goliath frogs don’t have a vocal sac and therefore don’t call to their mates.

Goliath frogs create nesting sites for offspring – this is a form of parental care. Adult males will take their cue from the environment in order to build a nest that is going to be safest for their offspring. They have three kinds of nests.

Each nest type presents advantages and disadvantages depending on whether it is the dry or the rainy season and the presence or absence of predators of the eggs at different sites.

1. rock pools cleared of leaf litter.
2. Washouts at riverbanks.
3. Depressions dug into the gravel of riverbanks.

The third kind of nest is arduous to create and is typically one metre in diameter. The building of this kind of nest requires brute strength for moving large rocks. It is thought that this is why goliath frogs are so large and muscular. Other extra large frog species such as gladiator frogs, bornean giant river frogs also perform this task.

The construction of nest is used by males as a way of demonstrating their prowess and reproductive fitness as mates to females. Male frogs provide most of the parental investment in the eggs and nest building, whereas females will deposit the eggs after fertilisation and then depart afterwards. Larval development of eggs to tadpoles to frogs takes approximately 85-95 days.

Threats

The Goliath Frog is adversely affected by the loss of forest habitat for agriculture (including the creation of new cocoa plantations, banana plantations, and palm oil plantations), logging and human settlements.

Read more

Goliath frogs face multiple human-related threats, including:

• Agricultural pollution and run-off: Pesticides and chemicals used in palm oil and cocoa plantations in this region are toxic to Goliath frogs, who require clean rivers to reproduce.
• Industrial timber, palm oil, meat and cocoa deforestation
• Human consumption: Both for local subsistence and sold to bushmeat markets.
• Collection for the illegal pet trade: Animals are exported from Cameroon to Zoos in the USA and Europe. Although captive frogs live longer than their wild relatives, they are not able to breed in captivity.

Support Goliath Frogs by going vegan and boycotting palm oil in the supermarket, it’s the #Boycott4Wildlife

Support the conservation of this species

This animal has no protections in place. Read about other forgotten species here. Create art to support this forgotten animal or raise awareness about them by sharing this post and using the #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife hashtags on social media. Also you can boycott palm oil in the supermarket.

Further Information

IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group. 2019. Conraua goliath. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2019: e.T5263A96062132. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2019-1.RLTS.T5263A96062132.en. Accessed on 12 November 2022.

Goliath Frog on Animalia.bio

Goliath Frog on Wikipedia

Marvin Schäfer, Sedrick Junior Tsekané, F. Arnaud M. Tchassem, Sanja Drakulić, Marina Kameni, Nono L. Gonwouo & Mark-Oliver Rödel (2019) Goliath frogs build nests for spawning – the reason for their gigantism?, Journal of Natural History, 53:21-22, 1263-1276, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2019.1642528

How can I help the #Boycott4Wildlife?

Take Action in Five Ways

1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• WordPress
• YouTube
• Mail
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Enter your email address

Sign Up

2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.

Wildlife Artist Juanchi Pérez

Read more

Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings

Read more

Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao

Read more

Health Physician Dr Evan Allen

Read more

The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert

Read more

How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy

Read more

3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.

https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20

https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20

https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20

4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.

5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here

#Africa #AfricanNews #Amphibian #amphibians #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottPalmOil #bushmeat #Cameroon #deforestation #endangered #EndangeredSpecies #EquatorialGuinea #extinction #ForgottenAnimals #Frog #Frogs #Gabon #GoliathFrogConrauaGoliath #herpetology #hunting #illegalPetTrade #PalmOil #palmoil #pesticides #pollution

Niger’s July 26 military coup was the latest manifestation of anti-French sentiment in West Africa. Journalist and author Nabila Ramdani explains why the region is rising up against France.

#Niger
#Africa
#France
#Colonialism
#Ecowas
#BurkinaFaso
#Mali
#French
#News
#AfricanNews

https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7268793712241610027

Yellow-casqued Hornbill Ceratogymna elata

Yellow-casqued Hornbill Ceratogymna elata

Red List Status: Vulnerable

Extant (resident): Cameroon; Côte d’Ivoire; Ghana; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau; Liberia; Mali; Nigeria; Senegal; Sierra Leone

Possibly Extinct: Togo

The yellow-casqued hornbill is one of the most remarkable hornbills in the world and one of the largest birds in the rainforests of West Africa weighing up to two kilos. Sporting a shock of russet coloured feathers and a striking blue coloured face, they prefer to live high up in the rainforest canopy in Côte d’Ivoire, #Ghana, #Liberia, Mali and #SierraLeone. Their main threat is hunting and human persecution and they are possibly extinction now in some countries. Recent mass deforestation for #mining, #palmoil, #cocoa and #meat is also a threat and they are now classified as #vulnerable. Help them every time you shop and be #vegan, #Boycottpalmoil, #Boycott4Wildlife

https://youtu.be/c6AX876MRr0

Yellow-casqued hornbills 🕊️🪽 are #vulnerable in #WestAfrica 🇱🇷🇬🇼🇳🇬 due to #hunting, #palmoil 🌴🔥#meat 🥩🔥 and #cocoa 🍫🔥 #deforestation across their range. Help save them and be #vegan 🥕🍅#Boycottpalmoil 🌴🪔⛔️ #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2023/09/17/yellow-casqued-hornbill-ceratogymna-elata/

A shock of fiery red feathers 🪶❤️💕 and blue rimmed 👁️👀😎 eyes announce the arrival of the majestic yellow-casqued #hornbill 🦜🕊️ They are vulnerable from #deforestation and #hunting in #WestAfrica. Fight for them! #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife https://palmoildetectives.com/2023/09/17/yellow-casqued-hornbill-ceratogymna-elata/

Appearance & Behaviour

One of the largest birds in West African the yellow-casqued hornbill has a shock of russet coloured feathers and a striking blue coloured face. They live in the forest canopy and rarely venture to the ground. Generally, they live in family groups of generally one adult female and male birds and two juveniles.

When a large ant or termite nest is discovered occasionally the birds will gather in large flocks to penetrate the nest. These hornbills are predated upon by crowned hawk eagles. Under threat from these eagles, a flock of hornbills will mob the birds as a group and call together loudly. This collective alarm call may serve to deter the eagles from hunting them.

Threats

Rapid destruction of their range across several countries in West Africa has meant that the yellow-casqued hornbill is now classified as vulnerable.

The Yellow-casqued Hornbill faces numerous anthropogenic threats including:

• Hunting is a major threat: Humans have predated upon these birds and overhunted them causing serious decline in their numbers.
• Deforestation for palm oil, meat and cocoa: Increasing fragmentation of rainforests in West Africa has meant the birds are restricted in food sources and their populations have reduced as a result.
• Climate change: Is also thought to be an additional threat to these large African birds.

The species is on the way out in eastern Ghana, and it is likely extinct in Togo (F. Dowsett-Lemaire in litt. 2016). Its disappearance from Bia NP, where there have been no records since 1991 (Dowsett-Lemaire and Dowsett 2011a), is probably related to uncontrolled hunting and the logging of the southern section in the 1990s. The species’s fate in south-western Ghana is very unfavourable, with most habitat expected to be lost to timber extraction and agricultural encroachment, and habitat in reserves expected to be lost by the early 2030s (Dowsett-Lemaire and Dowsett 2014).

IUCN Red List

Habitat

Yellow-casqued hornbills prefer to live their lives high up in the tree canopy of primary forest. However they are known to also survive in logged, riverine or secondary forests. They migrate according to food availability.

Diet

These birds are primarily folivores and insectivores who consume seeds, small insects, spiders and scorpions. The birds congregate in large flocks to invade termite mounds.

Support yellow-casqued hornbills by going vegan and boycotting palm oil in the supermarket, it’s the #Boycott4Wildlife

Support the conservation of this species

This animal has no protections in place. Read about other forgotten species here. Create art to support this forgotten animal or raise awareness about them by sharing this post and using the #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife hashtags on social media. Also you can boycott palm oil in the supermarket.

Further Information

BirdLife International. 2016. Ceratogymna elata. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T22682627A92954374. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22682627A92954374.en. Accessed on 31 October 2022.

Yellow-casqued hornbill Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-casqued_hornbill

Yellow-casqued hornbill Animalio.bio: https://animalia.bio/yellow-casqued-hornbill

How can I help the #Boycott4Wildlife?

Take Action in Five Ways

1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• WordPress
• YouTube
• Mail
• Mastodon

Enter your email address

Sign Up

2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.

Wildlife Artist Juanchi Pérez

Read more

Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings

Read more

Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao

Read more

Health Physician Dr Evan Allen

Read more

The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert

Read more

How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy

Read more

3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.

https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20

https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20

https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20

4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.

5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here

#africa #africanNews #animals #bird #birdsong #boycott4wildlife #boycottpalmoil #cameroon #cocoa #deforestation #forgottenAnimals #ghana #hornbill #hunting #ivoryCoast #liberia #meat #mining #nigeria #palmOil #palmOilDeforestation #palmoil #poachers #poaching #sierraLeone #sierraleone #song #songbird #songbirds #vegan #vulnerable #vulnerableSpecies #westafrica #yellowCasquedHornbillCeratogymnaElata

RSPO member SIAT leaves Nigerian farmers without food. Leases their illegally taken land for €1.23 Euros per hectare, per year

https://youtu.be/SnXISnURIBA

#RSPO member #SIAT of #Nigeria 🇳🇬 leaves Nigerian farmers without food 🧺🚫 The company leases their illegally taken land for €1.23 Euros per hectare, per year. In solidarity, please #BoycottPalmOil 🌴🪔🩸🤮🙊⛔️ @palmoildetect #landgrabbing #humanrights https://palmoildetectives.com/2023/03/12/rspo-member-siat-leaves-nigerian-farmers-without-food-sells-their-land-back-to-them/

Land illegally taken from farmers in #Nigeria 🇳🇬 by #RSPO member #SIAT is leased back to the farmers for €1.23 Euros per hectare, per year. In solidarity, please #BoycottPalmOil 🌴🪔🩸🤮🙊⛔️ @palmoildetect #landgrabbing #humanrights https://palmoildetectives.com/2023/03/12/rspo-member-siat-leaves-nigerian-farmers-without-food-sells-their-land-back-to-them/

A 5-month investigation by Elfredah Kevin-Alerechi and Kevin Woke of Sahara Reporters reveals how RSPO member SIAT Nigeria Limited is involved in human rights abuses and land-grabbing on host communities’ lands. Journalists Elfredah Kevin-Alerechi and Kevin Woke also discovered that palm oil company SIAT who illegally took their land are leasing it for a mere 600 Naira (N600) per hectare annually – the equivalent of €1.23 Euros per year to lease it.

River pollution by pesticides and restriction by the company to land, where locals can grow food has meant that their food and water supply is contaminated – starvation is now an urgent problem.  

All of this occurs under the guise of “sustainable” palm oil pushed by the RSPO to consumers. SIAT’s palm oil is used in consumer products by PZ Cussons (source), Nestle (source) and Danone (source). This is wh you should #Boycottpalmoil

Story via Sahara Reporters. Additional info: Chain Reaction Research

This article is written by Investigative Journalists Elfredah Kevin-Alerechi and Kevin Woke for Sahara Reporters and originally published March 3, 2023 as ‘SIAT Nigeria Land Grabbing, Pollution, Causing Hardship In Host Communities‘. Read original story.

In October 2019, Emmanuel Emeka, a fisherman in Mgbu-Anyim village had gone to fish at the mini- Onua, mini-Igwe and mini-Igbu riversin  Elele Alimini of Rivers State, only to see dead fishes floating on the surface of the river. SIAT Nigeria Limited, a Belgian company, has polluted the river with its fertilisers and chemicals used for weed and pest control, he alleged.

Emeka claimed he stopped fishing in the river because, after spending hours exploring it, he would always come up empty-handed. “While SIAT controls pests, they destroy our own,” he added.

To provide for himself, his wife, and their sole child, who is now 5 years old, he mostly relies on his daily catch from the river. However, because of the pollution created by SIAT, he is currently jobless and looking for work. “I sell some (fish) and eat some,” he says, recalling the good times before SIAT’s pollution, which he discovered began around 2017.

The majority of inhabitants in Elele Alimini primarily drank water from the mini-Igwe and mini-Igbu rivers. While farmers soak and wash their cassava in the river, fishermen catch fish from the river for consumption and to make profit. The reporters’ visit to the community proved that some of the company’s palm plantation is located directly behind the rivers, close by.

Emeka said: “Between 2012 to 2013 when the company(SIAT) came, everything was okay. We were still fishing in the river. But from 2017 to 2020, everywhere was polluted.

The decline in fish populations in the river prompted some elderly people in the community to look into and identify the source. According to Emeka, they discovered that the chemical SIAT sprayed on their palm trees and the ground to control weeds, pests, and increase yields is the main culprit.

Sa SIAT nv, a Belgian agro-industrial business that specialises in the production of palm oil, is the sole owner of SIAT Nigeria Ltd. (SNL). A total of 16,000 hectares of land were gathered in the communities of Elele and Ubima for oil palm plantations when the business acquired Risonpalm in 2011 from the Rivers State Government. According to the company’s profile on its website, 5,718 hectares were harvested from Elele and 9,513 hectares were harvested from Ubima in Rivers State. Since its establishment in Nigeria and other African nations, the corporation has made several billions of euros while occupying about 66,331 ha for the production of palm oil and rubber. For instance, SIAT group reported a revenue of 173 million euros in 2021. Unfortunately, despite acquiring the land of host communities and harming the environment in Africa, the firm has not adhered to its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) commitments.

Fast facts about African Palm Oil

• Only five international companies dominate industrial oil palm production in Africa: Socfin, Wilmar, Olam, Siat, and Straight KKM (formerly Feronia). They control an estimated 67% of the industrial oil palm planted area with foreign investment and may drive continuous expansion.
• Risks are most pronounced in Nigeria, where expansion may come at the cost of state natural forest reserves and critical habitat for endangered primates like chimpanzees, gorillas and many other rare species.
• Socfin and Wilmar, the two largest African operators, are linked to numerous social and environmental impacts on their African concessions. These impacts vary from land-grabbing to loss of social and environmental high conservation values to violence and intimidation.
• Palm oil buyers and FMCGs aew linked to escalated cases of land-grabbing and violence against local communities include Wilmar, Olam, Danone, PZ Cussons, FrieslandCampina, Nestlé, and Kellogg’s.
• Financiers and companies face reputation and regulation risk. FMCGs and financiers with NDPE violations linked to African palm oil supply face reputation risk. Moreover, they will need to comply with upcoming EU supply chain regulation.

Information via Chain Reaction Research

Farm owners are now farmland renters

Sampson Eleonu, 81, was only in primary school when Rivers State of Nigeria Palm (Risonpalm), a state-owned enterprise that later became SIAT, arrived to ask his father, Miniekom, an uneducated man, to surrender his family’s land in Elele Alimini under the pretence that he (Miniekom) would profit. He had no idea that this was the start of the misery endured by the residents of Mgbu-Anyim in Elele Alimini in Emohua Local Government Area, Rivers State.

Eleonu said: “They (Risonpalm) came in 1959 and collected all our farmland with false promises, until now, we didn’t see anything.

“My father gave a letter to them (Risonpalm) telling them what to do and they signed and agreed but none was done,” he added, stating that the discussion took place before the Nigerian civil war, and documents regarding the agreement could no longer be found.  Eleonu is now the leader of the Mgbu-Anyim family,one of SIAT host communities.

SIAT claimed on its website that it acquired 5,718 hectares of land from Elele, but Elenwo and other youth leaders in the Mgbo-Ivu family claimed that the company actually took over 6,000 hectares, which is now causing a food shortage and forcing some traders to struggle for a long time to get food to sell and eat. Mgbo-Anyim is made up of three families, and their lands were also collected, but “our own family (Mgbo-Ivu) lands is the highest that was taken. All was collected, nothing is remaining,” said Elenwo Joseph, former community youth leader, who interrupted during the interview with Elenwo.

“We are regretting now. It is my father that thought the company will do something(help) but nothing,” Eleonu interruptedJoseph Elenwo who was also complaining about the SIAT land grab.

The company took more than what was apportion to them and today, “we are buying land from neighbouring communities to farm,” Eleonu, lamented while sitting at the back of his house in Elele Alimini.

Local leaders protested in 2020 and 2021 over the company’s land grab and disregard for the host communities after SIAT asked for their bank account information and failed to give them the money they had verbally promised. Joseph said: “During the protest, we requested they sign a fresh agreement because we don’t have any agreement with SIAT. Even the rent they claim they have paid, we don’t have any document to support that claim.

“I asked my father, he said they gave them money but they didn’t sign anything. They asked them to thumb print on a paper and a copy was not given to them. They (my fathers) can’t even read.”

He claimed that SIAT attempted to bribe each executive member of the 22-member SIAT Landlord Association (made up of youth and parent body) with N5 million in order to end their agitation, but “we refused.” After numerous struggles, the corporation and the community finally came to an agreement that is now documented, Elenwo said.

Despite the fact that the MOU cited by the reporters did not specify the annual sum to be paid by SIAT to land owners on a per-hectare basis outside of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility, which includes employment and scholarships, several host communities in Ubima and Elele claimed that the company paid an annual rent of N600 per hectare, which sparked further agitation between the community and SIAT. The N600, along with the accumulated rent that SIAT owes to other families like the Mgbo-Ivu, has not yet been paid. The amount paid by SIAT for per hectare of land is three times less than what community residents  typically pay to neighbouring villages to buy farmlands per farming season..

Joseph word: “The company is paying N600 ($1) per hectare of land, annually. “This is what was negotiated in 1959 and they haven’t been paying for it.”

“They told us that since there is no document for such payment, we should accept the N600 per hectare. We are yet to receive the money from them.’

Like the Elele community, Ubima—-another host community of SIAT faced the same issue of neglect, land grabbing and pollution that has greatly affected farmers. According to Okechuwku Amadi, youth president of  SIAT Ubima estate landlord association, it took a decade to pay their land fees after resuming activities on their farmlands.

Amadi said: “After the meeting, they agreed to pay 5 years rent, only for us to receive an alert of N600($1)for annual payment  per hectare of land for 5 years.

According to Amadi, SIAT transferred the land fee into various community bank accounts and “my community was paid two hundred and ninety seven thousand naira(N297,000).”

“This caused a lot of arguments and issues because we never agreed with them(SIAT) to pay N600 as annual rent per hectare.”

He also accused the  company of using their trucks to destroy the road leading to their farmland, consequently, making it difficult for Ubima farmers to access their farm.

Many locals in Elele and Ubima said that despite damaging the source of drinking water, SIAT has failed to uphold its CSR commitments despite promising to provide water, electricity, scholarships, and road building in its memorandum of understanding with host communities. Amadi emphasised that the N100,000 per student in each host community that the company pledged to provide for each session has not been distributed consistently. “They started around 2014 but since then, this is the second batch.”

He added, “The Omademe market in Ikwere is unfinished. Two communities  from Etche were electrified, but the power only lasted for two months and there was no maintenance for two years.

Styvn Obodoekwe, programme director for the Center for Environmental, Human Rights, and Development criticised the company’s attitude towards the annual payment of N600 ($1) per hectare, calling it “an act of wickedness” in a state where land is expensive.

“Who does that in this part of the world? Steve asked? “It is too bad! Possibly between 30 and 50 years ago, when land was less expensive, and perhaps at that time they (the community) agreed under that arrangement. At that time, a plot of land was available for lease for N5,000.

Obodoekwe criticised the government for improperly using the Land Use Act to seize peoples’ land by force, despite the fact that the Act states that the government is allowed to take any portion of land for the “public interest” and not to seize the land and give it to a private company to profit from. He calls for the amendment of the Land Use Act.

The Nigerian Land Use Act, gives the government the opportunity to exploit people and the process of acquiring the land is lopsided, said human right lawyer, Courage Nsirimovu. According to him, the government uses the Act to favour companies that they (government) have a good relationship with to acquire people’s lands  under the disguise of the Act.

Nsirimovu said: “The foundation of the land use Act is terribly exploitative that is built against the people,” noting that the Act was based on the  federal government appropriating all the crude oil and petroleum products in Nigeria to itself and for the government  to have access to the petroleum products; the government has to get the land.

“In Nigeria, land is now owned by the government. You can wake up one day and the government will tell you to pack from your house  because they want to acquire the land  so the government can acquire any land,’’ he added.

More grievances

Since SIAT acquired the asset from the State government more than ten years ago, the suffering of the populace has gotten worse as a result of the company’s decision to grow their palm plantation at the expense of not only grabbing community land but also contaminating a river that provides drinking water to locals. In contrast to the pH range of 6.5 to 8.5 that the WHO recommends for drinking water, a sample of water collected from a community stream used by residents and sent to a laboratory for testing had a pH of 5.80.

Grace Amadi, a widow, relies on the crops from her farmland to provide for her seven children. When SIAT took all of their acreage and left them with nothing, her husband was still alive. However, as they both travelled to purchase farm goods from nearby settlements, she and her husband shared the struggle for survival. Her pain grew worse after her husband passed away in 2012.

When SIAT took Amadi’s land, neither she nor her husband received any notice from the company. She claims that they learned the terrible information after going to their farmland to  farm but learnt the land is now owned by SIAT. She folded her hand, still seeming surprised. “I joined other people to protest at the company’s office in Ubima, crying for days but nothing was done,” she lamented.

Amadi said: “Before SIAT took my farmland, I had plenty of food to eat. I farm yam, cassava but now, I have nothing to eat again.” She recalls that the company took their ten hectares of land.

Amadi now travels to the neighbouring state—Bayelsa, to buy farm produce such as cassava to process and make the local food called “garri”. She spent N4,000 for transportation, which she said isn’t a fixed price and it depends on the quantity of goods bought.

She said:  “If I don’t go to Bayelsa to buy cassava, I won’t eat,” she narrated in her local language. She travelled to Bayelsa twice weekly to buy a few things her money could afford.

“I spent N1,000 to travel to Bayelsa, and paid N3,000 while returning with the cassava. I borrowed all the money used for travelling.” According to her, she spent N3,000 to buy a cassava that is in a 50kg  cement bag.  “Before, it was sold for N2,000 but now I bought it N3,000,” she said while waiting for the labourer hired to bring the cassava.

SIAT is known for its notorious activities and lackadaisical attitude towards its host communities. The company cut down its unwanted trees and threw them into rivers leading to the farmlands,  Emeka accuse this company, lamenting that  “we can’t even access our farms, and when they cut down their palm trees, they use it to cover the river where we used to pass to get access to the river, We can’t even get fish again,” he stresses.

Since SIAT grabbed their farmland, according to Justina Welegbe, a farmer from the Welegba family, they have ceased farming and the firm has not given them any compensation. She plants yams, cassava, cocoyams, corn, and melons, and she sells these crops to buy food—like rice—that their land is unable to produce.

“Buyers come from neighbouring villages and I take them to my farm to show them the cassava and they buy it in “ridge” as we call it.  I use the money to pay my children fees. “But now, if we don’t go to buy a farm from neighbouring communities like Rumuekpe and others that are not affected by SIAT, we will not eat”

Justina Welegbe, farmer.

She said that the loan she obtained from the private community lenders, known as “meeting Aleto,” made the entire acquisition of the farmlands possible.

“Before, we bought a ridge of farmland for N500 and we buy 20 ridge but now it’s sold for N2,500 to plant my crops, and we buy only 5 ridge,” she lamented stating that she travelled on motorbike through the highway to a Mbiama, a neighbouring community market to buy cassava for processing,” she lamented.

According to her, she borrowed fifty thousand naira this week and will be paying an interest of thirty thousand naira latest by the end of December before she would be qualified to take another loan in 2023.

A canal dug by SIAT prevents local farmers from accessing water for their own food

One of the company’s well-known practices is building a canal around their palm plantation, preventing farmers from using the local stream to access their farms. The Community members used the river to access farms before SIAT came into existence.

The river is the quickest way to get to the river, but according to Welegbe, “SIAT use Mopol (police officers) to chase farmers who use it to access their farms. We have work, we don’t have a farm. Before we will use leg (walk) it would take between five to six hours to walk to get to the farm.

“The well water we dug in our compound is not good for drinking, so we have to buy a bag of pure water for N150 against the previous amount of N100. I buy 10 bags weekly (N1,500).”

Justina Welegbe, farmer.

She pointed out that the company had polluted the mini-Onua, mini-Igwe, and mini-Igbu rivers, from which the community’s members get their water, leading to a shortage of water. According to her, she now purchases a bag of sachet water, also known as ‘pure water’.

Due to the constant complaint by all the residents in Elele the reporters spoke with who pointed to SIAT as the polluter of the community stream—-the only source of drinking water,  and the reason for depletion of fish in their river, compelled the reporters to take two samples of water to ascertain the component in the river. Two water samples were taken, one from the community stream (which is described PB on the test result), and the other was PB, the area where SIAT dug their canal to restrict residents from accessing their farmlands.The reporters took the decision to take both sample because residents said both water at some point meets especially when the rivers flows or during the high tide. However, both water samples show the pH is below the WHO recommended standard of 6.5-8.5pH.

Test results

Analysing the test result, Kingsley Nwogbidi, chairman of the Nigerian Environmental Society said that the pH is very acidic and “it’s not good for either drinking or any use.” He said that because the levels of chloride ions (CL), nitrate nitrogen (NO3), and sulphate sulphur (SO4) are so high, they can negatively impact humans, animals, and marine life.

“The quality of the water is not suitable for drinking or any use,” Nwogbidi, added.

He further noted that if the fertiliser used on the farmland are washed into the community rivers as claimed by community members, “there will be so much pathogenic compound which is not good for aquatic life,’’ urging the community to reach out to the environmental society for proper professional advice. Research has shown that fish cannot survive in water below pH 4 .

The Missouri department of natural resources says Chloride (CL) can get into the environment through fertiliser use, livestock waste, dust suppressants, industries and other inputs and low and high levels can be toxic to fish, and  capable of killing trees and plants.

According to the Glenn Research Center, turbidity is a condition caused by suspended solids in the water, such as silt, clay, and industrial wastes. Research has shown that “fish in turbid water lose weight, and that this weight loss increases with nephelometric turbidity units, proving that long-term turbidity exposure is harmful to growth productivity.”

The test result from Elele contains 7.0 TDS, although the normal range for Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) is 0 to 5. According to experts, one of the common reasons for excessive TDS, which can be harmful to the ecosystem, is agricultural/pesticide runoff. Studies have shown that too much TDS in a body of water is hazardous to aquatic creatures like fish, amphibians, and macro-invertebrates.

According to various research, the optimum level of Dissolved Oxygen (DO) is above 6.5-8 mg/L and between 80 and 120 percent; however, the laboratory results show that river water (PB) has a DO level of 4.0. According to Wales Natural Resources, “fish and other animals may suffocate and die if oxygen levels in water drop quickly or are too low.

SIAT worker confirms pollution and meagre pay

An employee of SIAT, who asked to remain anonymous to protect themselves from further retaliation from the company, told the reporters that the company utilises chemical fertiliser to maintain the palm plantation, which aids in the growth of the palm fruits and protects them from pests.

Elenwo the executive youth member, accused the company of failing to hire the few indigenous people to work for SIAT, and their employees, including graduates, are paid meagerly despite putting in long hours. A SIAT employee who wished to remain anonymous supported Joseph’s accusations.

Our source explained that professional slashers are paid N2,300 per day while the chemical department are paid N2,500 daily, and harvesters are paid based on their work, N30 per bunch that is harvested.

Our source said:  “The money is paid monthly. Each day, the company takes records on our work and pays at the end of the month.

“My challenge is that the salary is too poor because of the stress, compared to the increase of food prices in Nigeria. Daily payment is N2,500 but I spent up to N3,000 daily as a family person with kids,” our source lamented.

NESREA, a government agency, whose responsibilities include protection and development of the environment, biodiversity conservation, enforcement and ensuring companies comply with environmental laws denied knowledge of environmental pollution in the communities. Zonal Director, Nosa Aigbedion demanded the community to write a formal letter to the agency.

Aigbedion said: “We receive a lot of spurious and unconfirmed claims of pollution frequently only to see that even the complainant sometimes is not even a member of the community. Following that, we sometimes require to get full details of the complaint itself and the complainant.

“Tell the community that if their claims are genuine, they should formally forward a letter to us stating their observations,’’ he said in a WhatsApp message.

All efforts made to reach the company for comment were abortive. Neither did the Public Relations Manager, Lucky Ezihuo respond to our Whatsapp message despite reading it nor was the email sent to the company responded.

Video documentary here

This investigation was supported by Journalismfund.eu.

Story by Investigative Journalists Elfredah Kevin-Alerechi and Kevin Woke for Sahara Reporters and originally published March 3, 2023 as ‘SIAT Nigeria Land Grabbing, Pollution, Causing Hardship In Host Communities‘. Read original story.

ENDS

Read more about RSPO greenwashing

Big brands using “sustainable” RSPO palm oil yet still causing deforestation (there are many others)

Nestlé

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Colgate-Palmolive

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Mondelēz

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Unilever

In 2020, global retail giant Unilever unveiled a deforestation-free supply chain promise. By 2023 they would be deforestation free. This has been and gone and they are still causing deforestation. This brand has…

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Danone

Savvy consumers have been pressuring French Dairy multinational Danone for decades to cease using deforestation palm oil. Yet they actually haven’t stopped this. From their website: ‘Danone is committed to eliminating deforestation from…

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PepsiCo

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Procter & Gamble

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Kelloggs/Kellanova

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Johnson & Johnson

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Here are some other ways you can help by using your wallet as a weapon and joining the #Boycott4Wildlife

What is greenwashing?

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Why join the #Boycott4Wildlife?

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Greenwashing Tactic #4: Fake Labels

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The Counterpunch: Consumer Solutions To Fight Extinction

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Palm Oil Detectives is completely self-funded by its creator. All hosting and website fees and investigations into brands are self-funded by the creator of this online movement. If you like what I am doing, you and would like me to help meet costs, please send Palm Oil Detectives a thanks on Ko-Fi.

#Africa #AfricanNews #BoycottPalmOil #BoycottPalmOil #corruption #deforestation #greenwashing #human #humanRights #HumanRights #hunger #indigenousRights #landRights #landgrabbing #Nestle #Nigeria #PalmOil #palmOilDeforestation #palmoil #poverty #RSPO #RSPOGreenwashing #SIAT #slavery #workersRights #WorkersRights

Chimpanzees once helped African rainforests recover from a major collapse

Most people probably think that the rainforest of central and west Africa, the second largest in the world, has been around for millions of years. However recent research suggests that it is mostly just 2,000 or so years old. The forest reached roughly its modern state following five centuries of regeneration after it was massively fragmented when the dry season suddenly became longer some 2,500 years ago. Help #chimpanzees to survive and #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife every time you shop

https://youtu.be/aY3XduaOZ2Q

Interesting fact: Seed dispersers like #chimpanzees in the #Congo kicked off rainforest growth only 2000 years ago 🦍🙉🩷 Now they face #extinction from #mining WE SAY NO to #mining in #DRC! #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/07/03/chimpanzees-once-helped-african-rainforests-recover-from-a-major-collapse/

Weird fact: DRC #Congo #rainforests are not ancient. Just 2000 years ago #chimpanzees and other seed dispersers led to rainforest growth. Now – we MUST protect them from #mining and #palmoil! #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🩸🔥💀❌ #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/07/03/chimpanzees-once-helped-african-rainforests-recover-from-a-major-collapse/

This process was not linked to humans. The forest recovery was instead made possible by seed dispersers including chimpanzees, which helped spread the slower-growing rainforest tree species. However, dispersers such as chimpanzees are now threatened by deforestation and hunting, often for bushmeat. When combined with climate change, the resilience of the rainforests seems less guaranteed for the future.

I began thinking about natural processes in African forests back in 1993, when I was with my wife-to-be trying to follow wild chimpanzees next to Jane Goodall’s famous group at Gombe, in Tanzania. We were inspired by one of the directors of research at Gombe, Anthony Collins, who suggested that the chimpanzees might be influencing the composition of the forest for their own nutritional needs, by what fruits they pooed out and where. A kind of “proto gardening”.

And then unexpectedly I had to leave the chimpanzees after I succeeded in getting a small grant to study past vegetation change using fossilised pollen, but in the Andes.

A few years later, I found myself giving lectures at Cambridge on human impacts over the past 10,000 years, and suddenly “returning” not only to the tropical rainforests of Africa, but their history. At the time, scientists thought humans were largely responsible for the collapse of the forests from 3,000 years ago.

The first few scientific papers I read used the abundance of pollen from the oil palm tree, preserved in the dated layers of lake muds, as an indicator of human activity. The oil palm is the same species often planted on a massive industrial scale in the tropics today, and since it’s always been an important source of nutrition for people in the region, scientists had assumed it indicated the presence of humans.

Shortly after, I began working in a pollen laboratory in Montpellier in southern France which had a long-term focus on African forest history. There, my simplified view of fossilised oil palm pollen equalling the presence of humans was totally overturned.

Rainforest history records were being amassed that indicated the near-decimation of rainforests some 2,500 years ago in the Congo Basin and across a huge expanse stretching from modern-day Senegal to Rwanda. As there was only very limited archaeological evidence of thinly dispersed human populations, humans could not have been responsible for the almost synchronous destruction on such a huge scale.

Africa hosts the world’s second largest rainforest

So what did cause these rainforests to collapse? It turns out the answer was not humans, but climate change.

In a paper recently published in the journal Global Planetary Change, my colleagues Pierre Giresse, Jean Maley and I use the many vegetation records available across central and west Africa to show that approximately 2,500 years ago, the length of the dry season increased. Rainforests became highly fragmented, and savanna vegetation – grasses, scattered shrubs and trees – moved in.

In the centuries that followed, the forests regenerated spontaneously, including with species such as the oil palm. The oil palm demands a lot of light and so thrives in open areas or in the gaps created in forests when the canopy opens up rather than in the dense centre. Thus it often acts as a “pioneer species” allowing the forest to regrow.

But the oil palm’s large seeds are too heavy to be blown in the wind. They therefore need to be dispersed in the poo of animals such as chimpanzees which are able to swallow the large seeds and for whom the bright orange flesh can be an important part of the diet. And this is how chimps and other seed-dispersers played a crucial role in regenerating Africa’s rainforests.

Seed dispersers under threat

When we began this research, we could not see how relevant it would become during the current pandemic. Now climate change, deforestation and hunting are all heavily impacting those same forests. The bushmeat market is contributing to removing keystone species such as chimpanzees. Without animals to move seeds around – especially the largest and heaviest seeds – the natural composition and regeneration of forests is threatened.

At the turn of the 20th century there were around 1 million chimpanzees, but today only an estimated 172,000-300,000 remain in the wild. Chimps and other seed-dispersing species provide a valuable service and must be better protected in order to protect the forests themselves, and prevent further unforeseen impacts.

For example, the transmission of diseases to humans has also been linked to the bushmeat trade. And transmission is not necessarily one way. In June 1996, three years after my wife and I left the chimps at Mitumba in Gombe National Park, possibly up to half the group died within a few days of a respiratory disease outbreak that was likely transmitted to them by humans.

Perhaps there is a lot more resilience in these tropical forest ecosystems than we can predict. But without chimpanzees and other animals as dispersers, the emptier forests that may eventually grow back would be a sad replacement. Maybe we need to consider the true value of chimp poo, and those that produce it.

Alex Chepstow-Lusty, Associate Researcher, Quaternary Palaeoenvironments Group, University of Cambridge

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Boycott the brands causing deforestation for palm oil, soy and meat by joining the #Boycott4Wildlife

#Africa #AfricanNews #amazingAnimals #animalExtinction #Ape #apes #Boycott4wildlife #Boycott4WildlifeTweet #BoycottPalmOil #ChimpanzeePanTroglodytes #Chimpanzees #Congo #CriticallyEndangeredSpecies #DRC #extinction #intelligence #Mammal #mining #Notomining #palmoil #Primate #primates #primatology #rainforests #SeedDispersers

Almost 90% of the world’s animal species will lose some habitat to agriculture by 2050

Scientists know that #biodiversity is declining across much of the world although less universally and dramatically than we feared. We also know that things are likely to get worse in the future, with a combination of #deforestation, #climatechange and overexploitation set to drive species and habitats ever closer to #extinction. Help them every time you shop and be #vegan #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife

The biggest threat to #biodiversity 🐘🌿🦒 is from #deforestation for food #agriculture. Protect #rainforest and ocean animals with a #plantbased #vegan diet, use your wallet as a weapon and #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🪔🙊⛔️ #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/03/20/almost-90-of-the-worlds-animal-species-will-lose-some-habitat-to-agriculture-by-2050/

What we don’t know, is what to do about this. Partly this is because conservation is woefully underfunded. But it’s also because the underlying causes of biodiversity declines are getting stronger and stronger every year. Climate change rightly gets a huge amount of coverage, but for biodiversity, the biggest threat actually comes from the destruction of natural habitats to make way for agriculture. And as global populations grow, and people become wealthier and consume more, that need for new agricultural land is just going to increase, resulting in at least 2 million sq km of new farmland by 2050, and maybe as much as 10 million.

Ensuring that this coming wave of agricultural expansion doesn’t lead to widespread biodiversity losses is going to require a big increase in “conventional” conservation approaches (protected areas and the like), but it is probably going to require something more too. These existing approaches are similar to performing heart surgery: very effective for the targeted species and habitats, but also not feasible for every species.

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Instead, we need to tackle the underlying causes, or conservation is not going to be able to cope. What we set out to do in a study just published in Nature Sustainability is to work out exactly which landscapes and species are likely to be the most threatened by agriculture in the future, and which specific changes to the food system give us the best chance of safeguarding wild biodiversity in different parts of the world.

Biodiversity under business-as-usual

To do this, we developed a method to forecast where agricultural land is likely to expand at very fine spatial scales (1.5km x 1.5km). We then overlaid these forecasts with habitat maps for almost 20,000 species of amphibians, birds and mammals, and observations of whether each species can exist in agricultural land. This allowed us to calculate the proportion of habitat each species would lose from 2010 to 2050.

Overall, we projected that almost 88% of species will lose habitat, with 1,280 losing over a quarter of their remaining habitat.

By looking at the impact on individual species in this way, and at such a fine spatial scale, we were able to identify specific regions, and even species, that are likely to be in serious need of conservation support in the coming decades.

Losses are likely to be particularly bad in Sub-saharan Africa, especially in the Rift Valley and equatorial West Africa, but there will also be serious declines in Latin America – particularly in the Atlantic Rainforest – and South-East Asia.

Importantly, many of the species projected to lose a lot of habitat are not currently threatened, and so conservationists may not be concerned about them. We think this kind of species and location-specific forecasting is going to be increasingly important if we are to proactively work to prevent biodiversity losses.

Proactive changes to help save biodiversity

OK, so far so bleak. Fortunately, there are some things we could do to alleviate this habitat loss, including: raise yields, eat healthier plant based diets, reduce food waste, or even a take a global approach to land-use planning, which could direct food production away from the most at-risk regions. In our study, we found that a combination of all four actions could avoid the vast majority of habitat loss seen under business-as-usual. Doing so, however, will require concerted efforts from governments, companies, NGOs, and individual people.

Our approach allowed us to tease apart which approaches are likely to have the biggest impacts in different parts of the world. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, our results suggest increasing yields is one of the biggest single things you can do to save biodiversity. It means you can produce the food you need from much smaller areas, and so massively reduce habitat clearance.

Palm oil creates ecological wastelands and species extinction

In contrast, yield increases will do very little in North America, where yields are already close to their maximum. Shifting to healthier diets, however, could have a massive impact in North America, reducing demand for animal products, and therefore demand for new agricultural land. Again, this contrasts with Sub-Saharan Africa, where healthier diets may actually involve increased consumption of both calories and animal products, and therefore will not bring great biodiversity benefits.

Saving biodiversity while feeding 10 billion

Importantly, we only looked at the impact of agricultural expansion on biodiversity. Other threats facing wild nature include climate change, pollution, habitat destruction for other reasons, or overharvesting resources like fish or valuable tropical hardwoods. Still, biodiversity is likely to decline massively, and conventional conservation is unlikely to be able to cope.

Nonetheless, our research at least provides some hope. With swift, ambitious and coordinated action, we can indeed provide a healthy and secure diet for the world’s population without further major loss of habitats. Many of these actions should be priorities anyway, at every level from individual actions to international policy. Healthier diets to combat perhaps the greatest public health crisis in the world; wasting less food; increasing agricultural yields to improve food security; these are all hugely important goals in their own right.

David Williams, Lecturer in Sustainability and the Environment, University of Leeds and Michael Clark, Postdoctoral Researcher, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Humans and Bonobos Share Contagious Yawn Behaviour

Most of us have experienced the overwhelming urge to yawn in response to another person yawning – but we’re not the only species to do this. Research published in PeerJ shows that bonobos – our closest evolutionary cousins – also experience “yawn contagion”. Similarly to how yawning occurs in human beings, the effects of yawn contagion in bonobos is influenced by the quality of relationships shared between individuals.

The tendency for humans to mirror the behaviours and emotions of another – sometimes referred to as “emotional contagion” – is also thought to reflect our heightened capacity for empathy. Help all non-human primates to survive extinction and be #Vegan #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife.

Humans mirror behaviour of others e.g. with yawning 🥱 💤 This is ’emotional contagion’ and #Bonobos and other #primates do this too. We’re closer than we think! We must protect our cousins #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🩸💀❌ #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/01/30/contagious-yawns-show-social-ties-in-humans-and-bonobos/

This research challenges the view that emotional contagion is more pronounced in humans than in other species. It suggests that variation in empathy between humans and bonobos is influenced by the quality of relationships shared by individuals – but experts warn we must be careful to avoid anthropomorphising.

In the first cross-species study of its kind, Elisabetta Palagi, Ivan Norscia and Elisa Demuru from the Natural History Museum at the University of Pisa used levels of “yawn contagion” as a tool for measuring differences in empathy between humans and bonobos over a five-year period.

The ability of an individual to perceive and feel others’ emotions is hard to quantify, which has made measuring empathy in an objective way difficult.

“Empathy is extremely difficult to study,” said Dr Palagi. “The only possibility was to explore the most basal layer of empathy – emotional contagion – and ‘yawn contagion’ is a good candidate to measure emotional contagion.”

In humans and bonobos, the researchers compared levels of “yawn contagion” in weakly-bonded individuals with those occurring in strongly-bonded individuals, revealing important similarities and differences between the two species.

The strength of emotional bonding between individuals was found to be important in stimulating an empathic response only in close friends or kin, with strongly-bonded humans exhibiting a greater level of emotional contagion than strongly-bonded bonobos. A similar level of “yawn contagion” occurred between humans and bonobos in weakly-bonded subjects, reflecting shared empathic foundations between the two species.

“We found that the two species differed in the level and latency of yawn response only when the subjects involved were good friends,” said Dr Palagi. “When the two subjects did not share a particular bonding the two species showed a strong similarity in the frequency of yawn contagion, thus suggesting that both species react in a very similar way to emotional contagion solicitation.”

According to Dr Palagi, monitoring bonobos was a lot easier than monitoring human subjects, as the “yawn contagion” effect is easily disturbed in humans if subjects are conscious of it. Because of this, all people involved in the study were unaware of being observed.

“We calculated how many times each perceived a yawn spontaneously emitted by a another individual and counted how many times he or she responded to that yawn,” she said.

A window into our social past

A yawning Pygmy Marmoset

Mark Elgar, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Melbourne, said the cross-species approach of the study produced some interesting results.

But he said we should exercise caution in attributing “yawn contagion” to empathic behaviour, since the evolutionary function of yawning behaviour itself remains a mystery.

“My nagging concern is that we don’t really understand why yawn contagion exists, especially since it can be triggered by at least two ‘emotive’ states – boredom and embarrassment – and one physiological state – tiredness,” Professor Elgar said. “What is the evolutionary significance of yawning?”

Darren Curnoe, associate professor in human evolution from the University of New South Wales, said the research helps us to better understand the “gap” between humans and other species – what it is that makes us unique.

“This fascinating research demonstrates at once how similar, and yet, how different we are to our chimpanzee and bonobo cousins,” he said.

He said the study also sheds light on the origin of human social behaviour.

“The desire to yawn, when we see it in others, is a reflection of our emotional connection to them and our brain sharing what they do,” he said. “It’s a result of our strong empathy with people whom we share strong bonds, we can’t help but imitate them. It has a very deep evolutionary origin back to our ape ancestors from millions of years ago.

“What’s unique though about our human form of emotional empathy is its intensity – we show a deeper form of empathy and bonding than chimpanzees or bonobos do. This is something that changed during our evolution and must reflect a difference in the way our ancestors behaved and organised themselves socially compared to chimps and bonobos.”

Penny Orbell, Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Wildlife Artist Juanchi Pérez

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Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings

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Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao

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Health Physician Dr Evan Allen

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The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert

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How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy

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3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.

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African Forest Elephants’s Movements Depend on Their Personalities

African forest #elephants roam the dense rainforests of West and Central Africa where they subsist largely on a diet of fruit. They shape forests by dispersing fruit and seeds, browsing, and creating an extensive trail network.

But because it’s difficult to track animals in thick forest, little is known about the movements of the African forest #elephant. This is troubling as #poaching of forest elephants for their #ivory as well as habitat fragmentation have decimated their populations over the past two decades. Their numbers have reduced from 700,000 to fewer than 150,000. Help them to survive #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife

African forest #elephants 🩶🐘🐘🩶 are critically endangered in #Gabon 🇬🇦 from #poaching #palmoil #deforestation and #climatechange. Tracking their movements can help better protect them #BoycottPalmOil 🌴🪔☠️🔥🧐🚫 #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/01/23/how-forest-elephants-move-depends-on-water-humans-and-also-their-personality/

On top of this, climate change might be reducing the availability of fruit in the forest, potentially leading to elephant famine.

Knowing how they move can help us to better protect them. Gabon, holds 50% of Africa’s remaining forest elephants. In 2017, the Gabon Parks Agency initiated an elephant GPS collaring programme to improve the understanding of forest elephant movements and guide their management.

We supported the Gabon Parks Agency’s collaring programme, providing scientific advice on study design, analysing data, and reporting on elephant movements.

Over six missions in four years, Dr Pete Morkel and his field team from the Gabon Parks Agency darted and affixed satellite collars on over 96 forest elephants. This happened in and around seven national parks.

We used this dataset of forest elephant movements – the largest ever assembled – to assess the factors influencing elephant movement behaviour.

Specifically, we asked the questions: to what extent do characteristics – like sex, habitat quality and human activity – determine the distance they move, their home range size, their exploratory behaviour, and their daily activity.

We found that all of these characteristics affected elephant behaviour. We also found that individual elephants consistently moved in different ways from each other. This told us that they have personalities.

These insights can provide clues into how elephants can be better managed to conserve their populations and to reduce conflict with humans, particularly crop raiding by elephants.

Drivers of elephant movement

We found that, on average, elephants moved nearly 2500 km a year.

In terms of intrinsic characteristics, sex was a key driver of elephant movement behaviour.

Male African Forest Elephants generally had larger home ranges and were slightly more active at night than females. They also spent less time in exploratory movements, these are long, persistent movements to new locations.

Food availability didn’t seem to affect movement behaviour. It might be that the rainforest habitat provided ample forage for elephants. However, we suspected that our measure of vegetation density was too coarse and didn’t capture availability of important diet items, like fruit and bark.

Water was key to elephant movements. Forest elephants, like savanna elephants, can lose up to 10% of the water in their bodies in a single hot day. We saw that forest elephants didn’t stray too far from water sources, such as rivers. During high rainfall, elephants moved longer distances and made more directed, exploratory movements.

Elephants also altered their movement behaviour in response to human activity. In areas of higher human disturbance, elephants moved less, had smaller home ranges, were less active during the day, and exhibited fewer exploratory movements. Like animals worldwide, elephants shortened their movements to avoid human-modified landscapes.

While environmental and human drivers explained some of the variation in elephant movements, much of the variation was explained by the individual identity of the elephant.

Exploring further, we found elephant personalities to vary between “idlers” to “explorers”. We identified individual differences in the relationships between movement behaviours, consistent with the concept of “behavioural syndromes”. In other words, an elephant that moved farther in a month also tended to have a larger home range and exhibited more exploratory behaviour.

Some forest elephants liked to explore, and others liked to stay put a bit more. And within these, there was enormous individual variation.

Forest elephant conservation

Our study offers some answers for elephant management, but also highlights complicating challenges.

For instance, the design of protected areas and habitat corridors must recognise that elephants may be reluctant to use habitat too far from perennial water sources or do so only in the wet season.

Unsurprisingly, elephant habitat should be protected from human disturbance, although further investigation into the types of human activities that most affect elephants is still necessary.

Variation in individual elephant behaviour – their personality – might complicate the development of general strategies for conservation if elephants respond in different ways to management.

Then again, it also accentuates the importance of conserving such a wide-ranging, intelligent and socially-complex species.

John Poulsen, Associate Professor of Tropical Ecology, Duke University and Christopher Beirne, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of British Columbia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Here are some other ways you can help by using your wallet as a weapon and joining the #Boycott4Wildlife

What is greenwashing?

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Why join the #Boycott4Wildlife?

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Greenwashing Tactic #4: Fake Labels

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The Counterpunch: Consumer Solutions To Fight Extinction

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