"Major dam and irrigation projects are drying up the wetlands that sustain life in the arid Sahel region of Africa. The result has been a wave of environmental refugees, as thousands of people flee, many on boats to Europe."

"The head of an animal conservation NGO who had received numerous death threats has been shot and killed by an unknown gunman in Tanzania."

"A global ban on horn trade remains in place but a proposal to end the domestic ban was initiated from private rhino owners who say they need to harvest and sell horns from live animals to afford spiraling security costs over protecting the rhinos from poachers."

"Scientists tracking a crop-destroying caterpillar known as armyworm say it is now spreading rapidly across mainland Africa and could reach tropical Asia and the Mediterranean in the next few years, threatening agricultural trade."

"Hunger, malnutrition and death threaten 6.5 million children in the impoverished drylands of Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya due to back-to-back droughts, a charity said on Friday, with spring rains also predicted to be poor."

"Scientists have mapped what they say is the largest peatland in the tropics, an area larger than New York State in the Congo Basin in Central Africa."