Fiona Macleod

Fiona Macleod is an environmental writer for the Mail & Guardian newspaper and editor of the M&G Greening the Future and Investing in the Future supplements.

She is also editor of Lowveld Living magazine in Mpumalanga.

An award-winning journalist, she was previously environmental editor of the M&G for 10 years and was awarded the Nick Steele award for environmental conservation.

She is a former editor of Earthyear magazine, chief sub-editor and assistant editor of the M&G, editor-in-chief of HomeGrown magazines, managing editor of True Love and production editor of The Executive.

She served terms on the judging panels of the SANParks Kudu Awards and The Green Trust Awards. She also worked as a freelance writer, editor and producer of several books, including Your Guide to Green Living, A Social Contract: The Way Forward and Fighting for Justice.

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/ 16 November 2005

Roll up for the culling circus

Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk is selling elephant culling on an international roadshow that will take in at least six countries across the globe. Flanked by officials from the South African National Parks the minister briefed government representatives and international NGOs in four European countries on the need to reduce elephant numbers.

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/ 9 November 2005

‘We can kill, or save, the Earth’

Mirriam Namushi comes from a dirt-poor family in rural Zambia kept alive by women. She knows the meaning of relying on natural resources for survival. ”As a woman, I am fighting to keep the wild animals for future generations. People say environmental crimes are not like stealing or murdering, but I am trying to show them the environment matters,” she told the Mail & Guardian.

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/ 21 October 2005

SA quivers in rising heat

South Africans should be quivering at evidence that desert trees are “marching” south to escape the heat, a scientist told a landmark national conference on climate change recently. Quiver trees, used for generations by the San to make quivers for their arrows, are shifting towards the South Pole in response to rising temperatures.

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/ 14 October 2005

Burning debate over ellies

Fourteen badly burnt young elephants rescued from a wildfire in the Pilanesberg National Park are caught in a tug of war between conservationists about whether they should be put out of their misery. The National Council of SPCAs sent a high-level delegation of five veterinarians to check on the elephants after one of them died of its injuries.

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/ 27 September 2005

Six thousand tuskers in firing line

The Kruger National Park wants to shoot up to 6 000 elephants as part of a national culling programme that could start next winter, the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> has learnt. Thousands of elephants in other state and private reserves around the country will also be culled, if a South African National Parks report on elephant management is endorsed by the public.

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/ 27 September 2005

6 000 tuskers in firing line

The Kruger National Park wants to shoot up to 6 000 elephants as part of a national culling programme that could start next winter, the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> has learnt. Thousands of elephants in other state and private reserves around the country will also be culled, if a South African National Parks report on elephant management is endorsed by the public.

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/ 16 September 2005

System failures lead to typhoid outbreak

The foul waters left behind by Hurricane Katrina in the United States have not claimed a single typhoid victim, but in Delmas, Mpumalanga, government chaos has resulted in two typhoid deaths — and the number of fatalities is rising. The outbreak occurs in the middle of a massive transfer programme of water services schemes to municipalities by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry.

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/ 12 September 2005

Developers ride roughshod over laws

Large developers are bulldozing through laws and processes set up to ensure development is sustainable, and government officials and judges appear powerless to stop them. Faced by what they call "a national crisis" caused by dodgy developers of townhouse complexes and golf estates, sustainable development activists are calling for a ministerial commission of inquiry.

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/ 9 September 2005

Media gagged again

For the second time in recent months, a high court judge has issued a broad gagging order on the media preventing them from reporting information already in their possession. Johannesburg High Court Judge Francois Malan ordered environmental group Earthlife Africa not to disseminate documents about potential business risks involved in producing pebble-bed modular reactors.

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/ 29 August 2005

Midnight butchery at game reserve

Staff at a state-owned game reserve in Limpopo are allegedly running a lucrative midnight butchery on the reserve and selling off bush meat to surrounding communities. In papers before the Pretoria High Court, it is alleged that the bush meat booty at the Hans Merensky provincial reserve near Gravelotte includes endangered species such as sable antelope.