Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Barbara Creecy has withdrawn an amendment to legislation that helped protect, among others, communal land rights holders from unwanted mining on their land. Was this because of Cabinet pressure from the mining ministry?

The World Food Programme has published a second update on the implications of the war in Ukraine for food security in Eastern Africa

Key Messages

• The disruptions in imports, production and the related surge in food prices induced by the current conflict in Ukraine have the potential to worsen the food security situation in the Eastern Africa Region, which is already been impacted by the effect of three consecutive below-normal rainfall seasons.

Kinandu village residents in southern Democratic Republic of Congo are taking part in a reforestation initiative in the miombo woodlands while land grabs are simultaneously on the rise.

• A subsidiary of South Korean paper company Moorim has cleared natural forests a tenth the size of Seoul in Indonesia’s Papua region over the past six years, a new report alleges.
• The report, published by various NGOs, alleges that the cleared areas consisted of primary forests serving as a habitat for threatened species and a source of livelihood for Indigenous Papuans.

AKIPRESS.COM - Mongolia has established a fund to support its national tree-planting campaign, Xinhua reported on Thursday citing the presidential press office.

The nationwide campaign to plant at least 1 billion trees by 2030 was officially launched last year as Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh told the United Nations General Assembly that the country aims to combat climate change and desertification.

Minister of Environment, Barbara Creecy’s recent revocation of the 2021 Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations Amendment is effectively reversing some of the very important progress communities have made in their ongoing fight for environmental justice and self-determination.

In South Africa on 3 March 2022, mining-affected communities and the broader environmental justice sector woke up to the news that the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, had removed a vital protection for mining-affected communities.