Environment + Energy – Views & Research

A big bulldozer and truck next to a lagoon

Are Uganda’s environmental impact reports just a box-ticking exercise? What a study of 108 projects reveals

Mulumba M Agaba, University of Liverpool

An open air garbage site with fires on it and clouds of smoke; about 35 people are sorting through discarded electronic goods

Poison or poverty: the impossible economic choices facing Ghana’s e-waste workers

Brandon Marc Finn, University of Michigan

About a dozen people stand inside a waist high gully filling it in with rocks and sandbags.

Ethiopian communities are using low-cost methods to restore eroded land

Wolde Mekuria, CGIAR

A chimpanzee peers at the camera with green leaves in the background

Why do male chimpanzees throw rocks at the same trees for more than a decade? We travelled to remote Guinea-Bissau to find out

Robyn Nakano, University of Victoria and Ammie Kalan, University of Victoria

Lake Kariba’s rising waters bring hope to communities in Zambia and Zimbabwe

Joshua Matanzima, The University of Queensland

Lake seen from a hill above with the dam wall visible

A lot of ‘recycled’ plastic is being burned overseas – and causing widespread pollution linked to health problems

Ellen M. Considine, University of Colorado Boulder

Workers collect plastic from a huge pile of trash more than twice their height.

Could sodium replace lithium as the dominant ingredient in batteries?

Syed Abdul Ahad, University of Limerick

Fertiliser: the forgotten history linking the agricultural commodity and empire in wartime

Lorenzo Feltrin, Ca' Foscari University of Venice; Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)

Water tank delivery in South Africa has stopped pipes getting fixed and opened the door to corruption – research

Nyashadzashe Chiwawa, University of KwaZulu-Natal

People standing around with buckets waiting for their turn to fill these up at a water tanker

Informal workers in Lagos are left to cope with devastating floods alone: why things must change

Gbenga Akinlolu Shadare, Buckinghamshire New University

A very busy open air marketplace with hundreds of stalls and customers

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Energy

12 solar panels mounted on the ground surrounded by a fence

South Africans want solar power but they worry panels will be stolen – study

Uzziah Mutumbi, Rhodes University; Gladman Thondhlana, University of Pretoria, and Sheunesu Ruwanza, Rhodes University

Mini-grids can supply electricity, but what about demand? A private DRC project shows how it can work

Nik Stoop, University of Antwerp; Elie Lunanga, University of Antwerp; Marijke Verpoorten, University of Antwerp, and Sébastien Desbureaux, Université de Montpellier

A woman turning on an electric pressure cooker that is standing on a wooden chair with a bright blue wall in the background

South Africa’s power utility Eskom wants to cut electricity to municipalities that haven’t paid: households may pay the price

Roula Inglesi-Lotz, University of Pretoria

Unpaved road with small houses and electricity lines

South Africa will run out of industrial gas by 2028 and 70,000 jobs could be lost – why government fixes are lacking

Craig McGregor, Stellenbosch University

Connecting home solar and electric vehicle batteries to the grid could boost South Africa’s clean energy and strengthen the electricity system

David Richard Walwyn, University of Pretoria

Three workers on a roof of a house fitting a solar panel

Does South Africa have a future without power cuts? Ramaphosa intervenes, but the drama isn’t over

Rod Crompton, University of the Witwatersrand

A balding African man in a suit speaks at a podium.

Ramaphosa and a stable electricity system in South Africa: the devils are in the detail

Mark Swilling, Stellenbosch University

A power station funnel belching out smoke, a pylon in the foreground.

South Africa is moving away from coal – how mines and power stations could be used for green energy and farming

Sandeep Pai, Duke University and Jennifer Lee Broadhurst, University of Cape Town

Children play among shacks, with power station cooling towers in the background

Natural World

Birds of prey in South Africa are in trouble – a study analyses data from 16 years of road counts

Santiago Zuluaga Castañeda, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC); Arjun Amar, University of Cape Town, and Megan Murgatroyd, University of Cape Town

Humidity and heat are killers for tropical birds – waxbill and hornbill studies highlight the dangers

Andrew McKechnie, University of Pretoria and Susan Cunningham, University of Cape Town

How wildlife conservancies perpetuate green colonialism in Kenya

Kariũki Kĩrigia, University of Toronto

Mozambique ‘sky island’ expeditions found 4 new species of chameleon – already at risk from forest loss

Krystal Tolley, University of Johannesburg

Global trade in wild birds is poorly monitored – the risks to wildlife, ecosystems and human health

Rowan O. Martin, University of Cape Town; Astrid A. Andersson, University of Hong Kong, and Caroline Dingle, Capilano University

Hundreds of birds perched in rows inside a bare room

Should wildlife parks be fenced? We studied 60 African examples for an answer

Dirk Cilliers, North-West University; Claudine Alberts (Roos), North-West University; Francois Pieter Retief, North-West University; Jurie Moolman, North-West University; Reece C Alberts, North-West University, and Ruhan Verster, North-West University

Two women in green uniforms walk next to a tall fence

Seizure of 2,000 ants at Nairobi airport highlights the hidden scale of insect trafficking

Elliot Doornbos, Nottingham Trent University

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Agriculture + Land

Farmer on a tractor in a ploughed field, looking at a laptop

AI offers promise for agriculture, but smallholder farmers risk being left behind

Abiodun Olusola Omotayo, University of Maryland Eastern Shore; North-West University and Abeeb Babatunde Omotoso, North-West University

Millions of farmers in Africa’s Great Lakes region face rising temperatures. Study predicts how crop disease and pests could spread

Romaric Armel Mouafo Tchinda, Université de Sherbrooke ; Aaron I. Plex Sulá, University of Florida; Jacobo Robledo Buritica, University of Florida, and Karen Garrett, University of Florida

Several people walk along a tilled field, hoeing and planting seeds.

80% of Africa’s fertiliser is imported: how food systems can adapt to the Iran shock

Jaron Porciello, Cornell University

A man stands with a sack bearing the word 'Fertiliser' next to a conveyor belt of organic matter.

Disputes over Africa’s ocean resources: here’s what could help avoid them

Elizabeth Selig, Stanford University; Adelina Maria Mensah, University of Ghana; Mafaniso Hara, University of the Western Cape, and Moenieba Isaacs, University of the Western Cape

Small wooden boats lined up on the shore with over 100 people getting ready to go out to sea

South Africa’s farmers aren’t yet replacing chemical fertilisers with sustainable alternatives – this is why

Mokgadi Miranda Hlongwane, Tshwane University of Technology

Women working in Uganda’s pig sector: how challenging prejudices can unlock opportunities – research

Esther Leah Achandi, International Livestock Research Institute

A woman tends to a pig behind an enclosure.

Women farmers in South Africa pay the cost of broken irrigation systems – the story of one cooperative

Elizabeth Hull, SOAS, University of London

Hand holding small leafy plants with roots; field in background

Sierra Leoneans who live off the sea don’t trust farmed fish – but wild fish are in decline

Nwamaka Okeke-Ogbuafor, University of Glasgow and Salieu Kabba Sankoh, University of Sierra Leone

Cape Town project tests what hydroponic farming can do in urban spaces

Tinashe P. Kanosvamhira, University of Leeds; University of the Western Cape

A man in a white lab coat inspects rows of flourishing salad greens that are growing vertically on shelves, one above another

Water

Indigenous shrubs and grasses with a borehole drilling machine behind them

Boreholes are booming in a drying South Africa – how the government plans to tighten controls

Surina Esterhuyse, University of the Free State

Handpumps bring water to rural African communities, but many are broken – study models how best to maintain them

Chengcheng Zhai, University of Notre Dame; Alfonso J. Pedraza Martinez, University of Notre Dame; Jorge Mejia, Indiana University; Kurt M. Bretthauer, Indiana University, and Rodney Parker, Indiana University

Five people stand with buckets near a tall water pump that is operated by pumping it by hand.

A water solution for drought-prone South Africa: we designed systems to replenish aquifers simply and cheaply in five towns

Surina Esterhuyse, University of the Free State; Danita Hohne, University of the Free State, and Fanus Fourie, University of the Free State

Parched and cracked brown landscape with not a single plant, stretching for miles

The Lesotho Highlands Water project is 40 years old and going strong: but history weighs on its successes

John Aerni-Flessner, Michigan State University

Landscape of a large dam in a mountainous area

Water in the dams, but South Africa’s taps are dry: essential reads on a history of bad management

Caroline Southey, The Conversation

Pollution

A magnifying glass zoomed in on a person's index and middle finger, where they hold tiny, microscopic shards of plastics.

Microplastics have been found to interact with the gut microbiome – here’s what health effects they might have

Nick Ilott, University of Oxford

The world’s waste mountain is rising at an alarming rate

Costas Velis, University of Leeds; Imperial College London and Ed Cook, Imperial College London

Lead Children: new Netflix series reminds us that lead poisoning is still a global health problem

Jane Entwistle, Northumbria University, Newcastle

A still from the Netflix series, Lead Children, in which a woman stands outside of an industrial factory which is bellowing out plumes of smoke.

Researchers develop biodegradable, plant-based packaging from natural fibers – new research

J. Carson Meredith, Georgia Institute of Technology

Crumpled up plastic wrap against a black background

How we turned plastic waste into vinegar: A sunlight-powered breakthrough

Yimin Wu, University of Waterloo

overhead view of large bins filled with plastic bottles

Environment + Energy – Views & Research – The Conversation

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