The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, has expressed deep concern over the rise of armed violence, poaching and destruction in the Dzanga-Sanga National Park, in Central African Republic. The site is part of Sangha Trinational, inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2012 and located in the north-western Congo Basin, at the meeting point between Cameroon, Congo and the Central African Republic.

African Parks Network is pleased to report that a major anti-poaching breakthrough has been made at Odzala-Kokoua National Park with the arrest of the kingpin of a regional ivory poaching and trafficking ring. The arrest of Ngondjo Ghislain, alias "Pépito", represents a coup for park manager Leon Lamprecht and his law enforcement team who have been working in extremely difficult circumstances to combat poaching in and around Odzala in recent months.

South African environmental campaigner Jonathan Deal was today awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for his work in the fight against hydraulic fracturing in the Karoo. Each year, the Goldman Environmental Foundation selects grassroots activists from around the world to honour them for their work. With an individual cash prize of $150 000 (close on R1.5m), it is the largest award for grassroots environmental activism in the world.

The fight against rhino poaching was given a further shot in the arm this week with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between South Africa and the People’s Republic of China on cooperation in the fields of Wetland and Desert Ecosystems and Wildlife Conservation.

Nanyuki, Kenya - As the triennial Conference of Parties of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) drew to a close last week in Bangkok, and after conservationists all around the world sounded the alarm on rhino poaching, the Ol Pejeta Conservancy lost a female black rhino to poachers.

Eighty-six elephants were killed in the last week close to Fianga, an area in Chad nearby the Cameroon border; the latest devastating elephant massacre. Wildlife officials said armed gangs killed the elephants, including 33 pregnant females, and their tusks were hacked out. First investigations reveal that the group of poachers was from Sudan, moving along the Chad -Cameroon border in the Mayo-Kebbi East Region.

Though the presidential election still remains in dispute in Kenya, with the opposition charging fraudulent and erroneous voting, the left hand of the government is busy pushing forward the multi-billion dollar project to build a second national port. The process is being so quickly moved that the recent Environmental Impact Assessment for the port has been completed, published and the public comment period expired, all before it was made public or local stakeholders were given opportunity to review it - in contravention of Kenyan law.

Countries of the Congo Basin now face a new threat to biodiversity. Crimes across national borders within the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) are seriously undermining conservation efforts, creating the necessity to merge vital economic growth with social and environmental considerations.

Half a million hectares of industrial oil palm expansion projects are getting underway in the Congo Basin rainforest, which will result in a fivefold increase in the area of active large-scale palm plantations in the region, according to Seeds of Destruction, a new report issued today by The Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK).

Bangkok, Thailand - A critical wildlife trade meeting closed Thursday with decisions from world governments to regulate the international trade in several species of sharks and timber, and to start taking action against countries doing little or nothing to stop the illegal ivory and rhino horn trades.