Special Reports

AFRICA is home to a tenth of the planet’s oil, a third of its mineral reserves and produces two-thirds of its diamonds. High prices may pep up the continent’s short-term economic growth, but scholars have long suspected that its plentiful natural resources also breed instability and violence. Politicians and their cronies cannot resist skimming off some of the huge profits, the theory goes, which enrages those who are left out. Struggles over these wealths have played a part

Given that in Africa wild lions are in catastrophic decline–the latest International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) figures suggest that fewer than 20,000 remain–it may come as a shock to discover that as many as 10,000 of the continent’s iconic big cats were legally hunted and exported as trophies in the ten years ending in 2013. The vast majority of these lions were bred in captivity for the purpose of hunting. The mostly American and European sports hunters t

Throughout history, human beings have killed wild animals to defend, avenge, profit or feed themselves. They still do. But there are a few who kill for another reason: pleasure. Why the pain and death of a beautiful creature gives them gratification is puzzling – perhaps they had father issues as teenagers – but there are more important questions that need answers. DON PINNOCK tries to sort out the truth from the rhetoric. Are trophy hunters protectors of biodiversity, as hun

To save African elephants from extinction, “range states should put their ivory stockpiles beyond commercial use immediately and simultaneously,” says South African economist Ross Harvey. Using a theoretical two-player, river-crossing game in a paper called “Preserving the African Elephant for Future Generations,” Harvey—a senior researcher with the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), the country’s premier research institute on international issues—demon

Welcome to the August issue of the Armed Con- flict Location & Event Data Project’s (ACLED) Con- flict Trends report. Each month, ACLED research- ers gather, analyse and publish data on political violence in Africa in realtime. Weekly updates to realtime conflict event data are published on the ACLED website, and are also available through our research partners at Climate Change and Af- rican Political Stability (CCAPS). This month’s issue focuses on Algeria’s fragile securit

African higher education systems have become casualties of war, caught in the crossfire of Islamic fundamentalism that cuts across the spectrum of religious and political thought, according to Professor Sultan Barakat, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. In a policy brief titled “Houses of Wisdom Matter: The responsibility to protect and rebuild higher education in the Arab world”, Barakat and co-author Dr Sansom Milton – a research fellow at the Pos

When the American Museum of Natural History wanted to update the hall of North American mammals, taxidermist George Dante got the call. When the tortoise Lonesome George, emblem of the Galápagos Islands, died, it was Dante who was tasked with restoring him. But Dante, who is one of the world’s most respected taxidermists, has never done what I’m asking him to do. No one has. I want Dante to design an artificial elephant tusk that has the look and feel of confiscated tusks loa

A new international survey reveals what’s really driving the demand side of the ivory market. The majority of people who buy products made from ivory say they would support banning the sale of ivory. That conflicting sentiment is one of several surprising findings in a new international survey published Wednesday by the National Geographic Society and GlobeScan. The study represents an effort to better understand what motivates people in the United States and Asian countries

​Parks Authority believes that the use of a bow and an arrow “was meant to conceal the illegal hunt by using a means that would not alert the rangers on patrol.” Bow and arrow hunting is also regulated by the Parks and Wildife Act, which found the hunt in direct contravention of it. Despite belated claims by American dentist Walter Palmer and Theo Bronkhorst, the professional hunter from Bushman Safaris that killing Cecil the lion was legal, Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Manage