Via Surfbirds News
With Madagascar’s priceless biodiversity on the line, a new report says “Go for it!” to USAID.
Twenty-five years of environmental assistance in Madagascar by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has achieved major progress in the biologically spectacular nation, but the gains are at critical risk of being reversed – and will likely be lost all together – if the international community continues to punish its government for the ongoing political situation.
That was the conclusion of a major new report which was commissioned by USAID’s Bureau for Africa, following the 2009 coup d’état in Madagascar and subsequent US suspension of environmental funding. The report, a comprehensive review of environmental assistance by the United States to Madagascar dating back to 1984, was produced by the International Resources Group (IRG), and launched at Conservation International’s (CI) global headquarters in Arlington this week.
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We’ve come across this opportunity:
SEED Awards 2010: Now Open
The SEED initiative is calling for applications from small-scale and locally driven enterprises around the globe for the 2010 SEED Award for Entrepreneurship in Sustainable Development.
The Award scheme addresses social and environmental entrepreneurs with the potential to contribute to poverty eradication and environmental sustainability advancing a green economy in their countries. Up to 35 winners will be selected to benefit from a customized support package including skills development, business support services, access to networks and high level profiling. Though entrepreneurs from around the globe are invited to apply, those from South Africa, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Senegal are especially encouraged to submit proposals.
The SEED initiative is hosted by the UN Environment Programme and counts amongst its partners the UN Development Programme, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as well as a number of governments including those of Germany, USA, South Africa, and India just to name a few.
For those interested in being considered for the 2010 Awards, please refer to the SEED website for more information and to apply online.
The deadline for applications is August 16, 2010, 11:59pm Central European Time.
Read more details.
Africa's ubiquitous "jiko" stove
Nairobi, Kenya (Xinhua) – July 9, 2010
A recent report compiled by the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey reveals that a staggering 76.4 percent of households in the country’s rural population, rely predominantly on firewood and charcoal for cooking and heating the homes.
These households still cook using the traditional three-stone open fire hearths, which require huge loads of fire woods to function.
Apart from the wanton destruction of the forest cover, these energy sources also contribute significant pollutants harmful to the environment.
Alarmed by the building up disaster, the Kenyan government and some stakeholders have embarked on a project to mitigate the challenge.
The project, named Promotion of Private Sector Development in Agriculture (PSDA), is designed to disseminate energy saving technologies, geared to improve rural livelihoods.
Speaking to Xinhua in a recent interview on the measures the government has embarked on, Nancy Nguru, the project’s cluster manager for Central Kenya, explained that the core objective is to provide environmental-friendly technologies to improve cooking facilities, reduce fuel intake and pollution.
The first step will be the provision of user friendly technologies to develop energy saving stoves (jikos) for use in ordinary households, hotels and institutions.
The project, she told Xinhua, will be implemented by empowering people in the communities with knowledge, technology and skills on energy saving stoves making process. (Read more)
By Frederick Womakuyu, reported in The New Vision, and reprinted in allAfrica.com
7 July 2010
Kampala — Uganda’s population hit the 33 million mark in 2010. National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) warns that the country’s environment is in danger as much of its forest cover and wetlands could soon disappear.
The dramatic reduction of the forest cover in Kibaale district perhaps demonstrates the impact the high population is having on nature.
In 1990, Kibaale had about 114,000 hectares of forest cover with a population of about 220,300 people. But by 2005, its forest cover had fallen to about 58,300 hectares with a population of about 413,000 people due to migration.
The Uganda Bureau of Statistics warns that if the population growth of Kibaale remains unchecked in the next 10-15 years, the forest cover in Kibaale will be reduced to 2,433 hectares. Read more.
By Arsène Séverin
KINKALA, Congo, Jun 22, 2010 (IPS) – The trees are falling in Pool, and there are plenty of people to hear the sound. In a painful irony, the end of armed conflict in 2003, has signaled the wholesale devastation of forests in this southern region of the Republic of Congo.
All along the 75 kilometre road between the capital Brazzaville, and Kinkala, the southern region’s principal city, there are bundles of wood and sacks of charcoal stacked ready to be trucked to feed the household energy demands of the capital.
Since the end of the civil wars which lasted from 1998 to 2003, production of charcoal and firewood has become profitable for the people in the Pool department, one of 12 administrative areas in the country.
There are farmers who produce nearly 300 sacks of charcoal every three months. A 15-kilo bag of sells for the equivalent of $10 in Brazzaville. Read more.
