Almost all of the logging in the Democratic Republic of Congo is illegal, says   a new report by the UK-based think tank, Chatham House . Though the figure of 87% is a startling one, it is not surprising for those of us here at...

The global palm oil industry is at a critical juncture. In 2012 we published a report that outlined how Africa is a new frontier for industrial palm oil production . This may bring much needed development to the continent, but it...

When I ask people what the backbone of most African economies is, the response is often a unanimous, “agriculture”. It goes without dispute that agriculture is the most important and largest contributor to the gross domestic product...

In hindsight, it was always evident that visiting the Cameroonian rainforest at the height of rainy season would present a unique set of problems. Scrabbling up a steep bank of mud, dripping with a combination of sweat and rain,...

As the rain thunders down, it becomes not just increasingly hard to hear the speakers but also to see them. The lack of light due to the poor electricity supply in this part of South West Cameroon means that as the clouds darken, the...

Finally, we have confirmation of what we have long suspected: AGRA, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, has been created to facilitate the corporate takeover of African agriculture, not support African smallholder farmers...

The Congo Basin is home to the second largest tropical rain-forested area on earth.  New research publicised this week suggests that the rate of deforestation in the region is actually slowing.  However this message does not...

Bruce Wrobel, the chief executive of Herakles Farms, claims his company’s efforts to flatten a chunk of Cameroon’s dense rainforest to develop a palm oil plantation are borne of a desire to address a "dire humanitarian need". Yet...

Agribusiness and commodity traders are thin on the ground at this week’s FAO conference in Rome on Forests for Food Security and Nutrition. Despite its title, this event is of little interest to Big Food. After all, this conference is...

Noa is a fisheries inspector from Mozambique, an easy-going man with soft features who really lights up if you talk to him about his work. He like’s to wear stripes. Mozambique’s ocean fisheries cover an area of almost 600,000 km2 and...

I saw six sharks being cut up for their fins yesterday. And as monstrous as it was, it won’t make headlines, it isn’t News: currently the fins of  between 26 million and 73 million sharks are sold a year, that’s up to 8,000 sharks...

When I think about climate change in Africa, the word that comes to mind is ‘injustice’ – the reality that those least responsible for climate change, are the one’s most exposed to its impacts. Simultaneously, they’re the...

I’ve been working for Greenpeace for nearly three years now as a climate and energy campaigner, and I’ve been lucky enough to spend some time on the Esperanza (one of the Greenpeace ships) before. That was over a year ago, and while I...

The crew had been aboard the Japanese longliner for seven months. Mostly from Indonesia, the men didn’t speak much English, but a few did recognize the name ‘Greenpeace’. It was clear the ship had seen its fair share of fishing, but...