africa

photo by Erin Collins

Plans by the Kenyan government to approve expansion of sugarcane cultivation in the Tana River Delta by Mumias, the nation's largest sugar cane producer, have been dealt a blow by the courts.

As reported by Reuters, the Malindi High Court ruled last Friday that environmentalists and representatives of local livestock groups could apply for judicial review of the project. Until this judicial review is completed...

photo by Damien Rafferty/Fly Global Music Culture

I admit that it’s often easy to get down when thinking about environmental degradation, especially in a place like Africa which has had so many other problems as well. Every once in a while though you come across a story that makes you reconsider your assumptions about stopping a seemingly relentless force such as the expanding desertification in the Sahel.

The Great Green Wall
ENN is running a story about how African nations on the creeping southern border of the Sahara are taking action to attempt to halt the...

Bread & Butter, the trade show for selected brands, opened its summer doors again in Barcelona today for 3 days of clothing culture under the concept ‘New Order’. Apart from some of our favourite eco fashion labels we already met at Bread & Butter King Size in January, we really liked the ‘Collection of Hope’, resulting from a workshop by students of the ESMOD fashion schools. Africa and Social Responsibility inspired this project and lead to a discussion of textiles and clothing in modern Africa from dive...

A enlightening hole full of crap and trash won a $200,000 grant from the World Bank. More specifically, Lebônê Solutions is one of 16 winners in the World Bank’s Lighting Africa 2008 Development Competition for their work on implementing Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) to provide light to rural Africans that are currently stranded in the dark.

In most African countries, 95% of the population is living off-grid with no access to electricity. Lebone's solution is the implementation of a combination of highly efficient PLED lights powered by MFCs. These fuel cells run on animal and plant waste and naturally occurring soil microbes.

The other day I was listening to music on my iTunes and I saw that the next song in the cue was going to be, African by H2O Feat.

They Say...Half of the world's poor suffer from waterborne disease, and nearly 6,000 people - mainly children - die each day by consuming unsafe drinking water.

LifeStraw® water purifiers have been developed as a practical way of preventing disease and saving lives, as well as achieving the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe water by the year 2015

I say.. Lets start giving 'em out ASAP. Start in Burma.

We recently heard a piece on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition about a school in Cairo's Manshiyet Nasser slum community where the city's young garbage collectors are learning the business and economics of recycling and using solar energy to do it.

The school is called the Mokattam Non-Formal Education Project, and has received funding form UNESCO and Procter & Gamble, a company whose products like shampoo are sold in the plastic bottles that end up on Cairo's streets....

Spiegel Online published a series of pictures titled "Desertec: Strom aus der Wüste" (translation: Desertech: Electricity from the desert). It includes this image of how much land would be needed to power the world, Europe or Germany with solar-thermal power. The idea is similar to a post we did a year ago: How Much Land to Power The Whole World with Solar?

The red square on the left is for the whole world, in the middle for Europe-25, and on the right for Germany. Below you can see pictures of the kind of technology they're talking about. It's a bit similar to

Ghetto... Bass... Quake...I just got done djing in San Francisco's Bay View district for an Earth Day event. It, along with the adjacent Hunter's Point, is a neighborhood that could be characterized by the word Ghetto. A neighborhood with a high rate of crime, a high portion of the residents are poor, the majority are non-white, and it's probably the last neighborhood in San Francisco with a high percentage of African-Americans. There is the threat of redevelopment and displacement. There is a presence of drug use and trade.

we mulled over the notion of whether colourful Crocs footwear might be the Birkenstocks for a new generation. Many respondents argued that without containing recycled content or at least a way of recycling the worn-out shoes they couldn’t be considered ‘green.’

Earlier this year Crocs seemed to have taken steps, if you will, to address these issues. Their new line of SolesUnited are made with grounded up old crocs. The new styles have 20% of this recycled content. Going one further Crocs plan, for 2008, to develop partnerships with shipping companies and worldwide non-profit organisations,...

In my inbox the other day arrived a Coupe Decale mixtape from San Francisco's Chief Boima. It was awesome, like nothing I've heard before, not just straight African stuff but a house party style mash up with Bashment, Juke & Hip Hop. So fresh.I started trying to write a post but realized I know bugger all about Coupe Decale so I gave up and asked the man himself to fill us in.   Hi Chief Boima. How's it going?Hi Vamanos, Let's Go!...Things are good out here in cloudy California. Tell me about Coupe Decale music.

Yesterday Collin, TH's resident design guru, reported that there's been proof at the Salone del Mobile of some high profile design studios taking a greener approach to some of their products. The theme started by the 'One day paper waste' table at Droog,was continued over at another design giant's stand with Stephen Burks' recycled paper tables. While designboom noted ''a lack of seriously minded sustainable
products'' we're glad to see that they still managed to find a few gems like the new 'Cappellini Love' col...

Image: Dave BergeronIt’s that time of year again in Montréal when even the deepest and coldest snow drifts yield to the warm, melting power of the sun: the cyclists are out in full force, outdoor cafés make a comeback and people start smiling at each other on the street again. It’s also the time when the butterflies go free at the Montréal Botanical Garden during the 11th annual edition of the Butterflies Go Free (Papillons en liberté) event, which began in February 21 and will run until April 27th, this year f...

Celcias: What a Waste by Joe Turner
"An apple a day gets thrown away. In fact, 4.4 million apples get thrown away in the UK every day, the majority of which are still perfectly edible. This is according to information released this week by the UK government funded Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP)."

Green Thing: Why Take a Short Sharp Shower?
"The world and its water are like a balding man and his hair. Neither can make any more of it, and the total amount at either’s disposal is only ever ...