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ABERDARE, Kenya (AFP) – A fire that raged for two days in Kenya’s Aberdare National Park has been extinguished after burning through hundreds of hectares of wilderness, a government forest official said on Monday. The blaze started Saturday and dozens of forest rangers, firefighters and volunteers had struggled to control the fire from spreading, as suspicions of arson emerged. The park was etched in history when Britain’s Elizabeth II, then a princess on a 1952 […]
by Juan Sebastian SERRANO Agence France-Presse BOGOTA, Colombia (AFP) – More than 100 African hippos descended from fewer than a handful imported as exotic pets by drug lord Pablo Escobar, face an uncertain future in Colombia. After the government added Escobar’s so-called “cocaine” hippos Friday to a list of “introduced, invasive species,” experts say killing them may be the only viable option. From the few individuals once housed at Escobar’s Hacienda Napoles estate, the hippos’ […]
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) – The heaviest flooding to hit Ecuador in two decades claimed 28 lives in the capital Quito this week and left 52 people injured, the city’s mayor said Sunday. The floods inundated homes, carried off cars and swept away volleyball players and spectators on a sports field. Rescuers are still searching for a missing 38-year-old woman who lived in the popular La Comuna neighborhood. Rain that drenched Quito for 17 straight hours […]
January of this year was the hottest month in the Colombian Amazon in a decade, leading to an increase in forest fires in the southeastern region and very likely impacting air quality in the capital Bogota, according to an Environment Ministry report seen by AFP Friday. It said the month of January recorded the “highest hot spot values in the last 10 years” in the Colombian Amazon. The phenomenon occurs, the ministry said, when the […]
by Samir Tounsi Agence France-Presse MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) – As dawn breaks over Mexico City’s floating gardens, Omar Menchaca paddles his kayak through a maze of canals collecting garbage left by visitors to one of the last vestiges of the ancient Aztec capital. In the silence of the early morning, before the hordes of tourists arrive, the 66-year-old retiree fishes plastic bottles and other debris from the waters of Xochimilco. “I came here to […]
by Carlos MANDUJANO Agence France-Presse LIMA, Peru (AFP) – Hand fed fish and given gentle yet rigorous baths, penguins and other sea birds are slowly regaining their strength at a Peruvian zoo after a major oil spill that claimed many of their friends. Of about 150 oil-stained birds rescued alive after the January 15 spill of some 12,000 barrels of oil, half later died. The survivors — penguins, cormorants and pelicans — are being nursed […]
CALLAO, Peru (AFP) – Spanish energy giant Repsol on Thursday vowed to finish by March cleaning up a devastating oil spill that has polluted beaches and killed wildlife. Almost 12,000 barrels of crude spilled into the sea off Peru on January 15 as a tanker unloaded oil at a Repsol owned refinery. “We expect that if the weather allows us then, in mid-March” the cleaning of beaches and islands off the coast will be completed, […]
by Paola LÓPEZ Agence France-Presse PUERTO MADEROS, Ecuador (AFP) – There is oil in the water, on the rocks and in the sand where children normally play on the banks of the Coca River in Ecuador. Residents of Puerto Maderos make no effort to hide their anger at the latest crude spill to hit the Ecuadoran Amazon. “This damage is not for a month, two months… it will be 20 years” before things return to […]
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AFP) – The Czech Republic and Poland on Thursday signed a deal on a giant coal mine near the Czech and German borders to end a dispute that has caused a stand-off between Warsaw and Brussels. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki “signed an agreement” in Prague on the Turow lignite mine, the Polish prime minister’s office said on Twitter. “We managed to push away a stone […]
by Nick Perry Agence France-Presse NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) – In his 15 years defending one of Nairobi’s last green spaces, Simon Nganga has seen off brazen attempts to seize what’s left of the lush forest bordered by highways and housing estates. Persistent efforts by developers and powerful individuals to seize chunks of the bush as their own were defeated under historic laws enacted to protect Kenya’s dwindling forests from unchecked logging and environmental destruction. But […]
by Daniel ARONSSOHN Agence France-Presse BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) – The European Commission on Wednesday defied angry dissent from EU governments and protests from green campaigners to give a sustainable finance label to investments in both gas and nuclear power. Austria warned it will go to court to try to halt the measure, while Germany — which backed the inclusion of gas — called extending the labelling to nuclear “unacceptable”. Critics of nuclear energy point to […]
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AFP) – Extreme weather events such as heatwaves and floods have cost Europe almost 510 billion euros and around 142,000 lives over the past 40 years, according to a new report published Thursday. In its study, the European Environment Agency (EEA) called for continued adaptation measures at both individual and state level. A small number of extreme events, about three percent of the total, were alone responsible for about 60 percent of the […]
