Geographical

Official magazine of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)

Tommy Trenchard

How Lesotho is left reeling from US aid cuts

7 minutes

When the USA froze all foreign aid, Lesotho's fragile HIV support network collapsed overnight. The consequences, as this story shows, were immediate – and devastating On a cold morning in June, Mateke Rabohlale set out into the hills of northern Lesotho, searching for one of her patients, who had gone missing. A gentle, softly spoken 36-year-old, Rabohlale worked as a … [Read more...] about How Lesotho is left reeling from US aid cuts

Is the Great Green Wall a mirage of hope?

8 minutes

The Great Green Wall was meant to reshape the Sahel. But as drought, bureaucracy and fading funds take their toll, its legacy is uneven A gust of hot wind sweeps up a swirl of dust from the parched field that was once Seydou Ka’s farm. Standing at the top of a derelict concrete tower that used to store hundreds of bags of seeds, the 70-year- old peers at the landscape of … [Read more...] about Is the Great Green Wall a mirage of hope?

The Lobito Corridor: the new scramble for critical minerals

10 minutes

Stretching from Angola’s Atlantic coast to central Africa, the Lobito Corridor is now a key rail route in the global scramble for critical minerals — and a test of whether the West can match China’s reach on the continent At the train station in Luau, a dusty border town between Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), waiting passengers jostle anxiously … [Read more...] about The Lobito Corridor: the new scramble for critical minerals

Sierra Leone’s disappearing island

6 minutes

Tommy Trenchard reveals how families are battling to survive on Sierra Leone's Nyangai Island amid rising tides from climate change Life is rarely easy in the remote villages scattered along Sierra Leone’s Atlantic coastline. Poverty is widespread, jobs are few and infrastructure and basic services are rudimentary at best. But for the residents of Nyangai, a diminutive … [Read more...] about Sierra Leone’s disappearing island

Sharing the revenue from South Africa’s roobios tea with the indigenous Khoisan people

8 minutes

South Africa’s Khoisan people have long been marginalised and landless. But now, a historic benefit-sharing agreement for the money generated by rooibos is offering a step in the right direction When Barend Salomo was a boy in South Africa’s Cederberg Mountains, his father would take him on walks through the rugged terrain to teach him about local flora and fauna. By the … [Read more...] about Sharing the revenue from South Africa’s roobios tea with the indigenous Khoisan people