Patterns, Trends, and Issues of Illicit Wildlife Hunting and Trade: Analysis Based on African Environmental Ethics

The creation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1973 has significantly altered the dynamics of trade in fauna and flora. Despite this effort, curbing of criminal trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora has remained a key challenge for some countries. The objective of this study was to identify and establish the trafficking routes of illegal wildlife and forest products, analyzing the patterns and trends of wildlife and forest crime including their drivers, actors and modus operandi, and assessing the criminal justice response including the legislative, enforcement, prosecutorial and judicial systems. The analysis was based on the methodologies and principles embedded in African environmental ethics. It was concluded that African ethics allows for ‘sustainable poaching’ under the framework of Eco-Afrocentricism; but condemns poaching done for trafficking purposes. Five canons of sustainability were developed to guide ‘sustainable poaching’. African capitalism thesis was used to support the analysis from political and economic perspectives

Taxonomic results of the Bryotrop expedition to Zaire and Rwanda : 26., a new checklist of the mosses of Central Africa

Central Africa was one of the first regions in the tropics, if not the first, for which a checklist of mosses was compiled. In 1940, Demaret published the "Prodrome des Bryophytes du Congo Belge et du Ruanda-Urundi", followed by a supplement in 1946. In the 50 years since that time, numerous new contributions to the bryophyte flora of Central Africa have been made. Demaret added seven more publications on Zaire (formerly Belgian Congo). Potier de la Varde studied the bryophyte collections made during the surveys of the flora of the Central African volcanoes by Hedberg

Additions to the bryophyte flora of Réunion (East African Islands)

Nineteen species of bryophytes are reported for the first time for Réunion. Especially remarkable are the first African record of Anastrophyllum leucocephalum (Tayl.) Steph. and the first records for the East African Islands of Cephaloziella cf. vaginans Steph., Fossombronia foveolata Lindb., Riccia huebeneriana Lindenb., Barbula unguiculata Hedw., Bryum pseudotriquetrum (Hedw.) Schwägr., Chenia leptophylla (Müll.Hal.) R.H.Zander, Dicranella subsubulata (Hampe ex Müll.Hal.) A.Jaeger, Ditrichum punctulatum Mitt., Physcomitrium spathulatum (Hornsch.) Müll.Hal. var. spathulatum and Trichostomum crispulum Bruch var. crispulum. Brachymenium gemmiferum A.J.Shaw & W.R.Buck is regarded as synonymous with Brachymenium exile (Dozy & Molk.) Bosch & Sande Lac

Manual of tropical bryology

Bryophytes belong to the oldest land plants. They existed already in the Palaeozoic 300 mio years ago in forms which were hardly different from the extant species. They remained relatively unchanged with relatively low evolution rates (and are thus often called a „conservative“ plant group), but could successfully establish themselves in an always varying environment from Devonian swamps to Permian forests, Mesozoic deserts and as epiphytes in Tertiary rainforests. They are not eaten by snails or insects, and are resistant against fungi and bacteria

Air and Water Quality under Pressure in Africa

The African continent has large untapped environmental resources: together with Latin America and the Caribbean, the continent has the largest reserve of agricultural land, accounting for 80 per cent of the global total.Africa is home to important biodiversity assets and ecosystems, including the Congo Basin rainforest – the second largest tropical rainforest in the world. However, the continent's natural capital is under pressure from urbanization and industrialization as well as from a growing population. This has resulted in the degradation of air, land and water quality.Poverty and lack of investment has accelerated this deterioration in many regions, preventing people from utilizing the continent's natural resources in a sustainable manner.Sustainable management of natural capital is key to ensuring continued economic development of the continent. The GEO-6 presents the state of play for air, water and land in Africa and looks at how these resources can be tackled

The exploration of the East African bryoflora

During the past 5 years intensive bryological explorations were carried out in Tanzania with special emphasize on hitherto undercollected areas (e.g. Nguru mountains, Mafia Island, unknown accesses of Mount Kilimanjaro and Meru) and on special habitats (e.g. rocky semi-desert or heath vegetation and alkaline tolerant epiphytic vegetation along the Rift Valley). These collections (above 8000 numbers) resulted in numerous records, some of them new to the African continent and at least 8 species new to science. The data point to interesting phytogeographical links and help to explain the evolution of the flora of East African volcanoes and crystalline mountains. Hitherto unknown oil bodies of more than 50 liverwort species were investigated. This paper does not give a full account of these studies but only provides examples to illustrate the above points

"I make films to be seen": the narrative issue of Flora Gomes

The feature films by Flora Gomes: Mortu nega (1988), Udju azul di Yonta (1992), Po di sangui (1996), Nha fala (2002) and Republica di mininus (2012) narrate stories that speak of transits, music, woman, children, war, (neo) colonialism, cosmogony, life, death, love, birth, migration, tradition, modernity, collectivity; taking place in the countryside, or outdoors generally, in an ironic, critical and metaphorical tone of speech. In this sense, the present abstract "I make films to be seen": an analysis of the film narrative of Flora Gomes" proposes to shed light on the elements of narrative cinematography of the fiction films of Flora Gomes which are present in the speech, themes, soundtrack, orality, time, duration, space, camera movements, actors' preparation, the work of illumination of the black body, the scenery, and the visual metaphors of this director. Note that the present text is an extract of some of Gomes's trademarks from doctoral thesis defended in 2018.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Plant dispersal across the tropical Atlantic by wind and sea currents

This review brings together evidence on the monophyly and ages of angiosperm lineages ranging across the tropical Atlantic with data on the direction, strength, and speed of sea currents and wind jets across that ocean. Mainly for pragmatic reasons (data availability), the focus is on genera, which introduces a rank-based constraint into the analysis. However, trans-Atlantic disjunctions at the genus level seemed more likely to be attributable to long-distance dispersal than those involving families or species; family-level disjunctions often may date back to the breakup of Africa and South America, and species-level disjunctions often may be anthropogenic. At least 110 genera (listed in this article) contain species on both sides of the tropical Atlantic. Molecular phylogenies and age estimates from molecular clocks are available for 11 disjunct genera, tribes, and species. Inferred directions and modes of dispersal can be related parsimoniously to water currents between Africa and South America and to exceptional westerly winds blowing from northeastern Brazil to northwest Africa. Based on diaspore morphology and inferred dispersal biology in the 110 genera, trans-Atlantic dispersal by water (in both directions) appears more common than dispersal by wind or on birds. Wind dispersal appears to have occurred in the direction from South America to West Africa but rarely in the opposite direction