Durban

The involvement of local communities in the management of protected areas has found expression on Wednesday in the ratification of the Durban Accord at the World Parks Congress — but a conservationist has said it is an example of ”false beliefs and common mistakes rife in conservation”.

The international community needs to provide financial and technical help for Africa’s protected areas, the World Parks Congress has recommended. It says one of the most important environmental challenges facing the continent is the need to reconcile development needs with management of its natural resources.

The failure of some governments to regulate the activities of their fishing fleets in international waters means new ways must be found to manage and protect the biological diversity of the high seas, a coalition of marine participants said on Tuesday at the fifth World Parks Congress in Durban.

An agreement aimed at strengthening the protection of the world’s thousands of migratory species has been signed by the World Conservation Union and the Convention on Migratory Species at the World Parks Congress in Durban. These species include South Africa’s elephant population.

The government is hoping the introduction of a ”tax break” into draft property-rating legislation will increase the area of land under conservation in South Africa, journalists at the fifth World Parks Congress in Durban heard on Tuesday.

Natural resources and biological diversity are a priceless heritage the world can ill afford to lose, President Thabo Mbeki said on Monday, speaking at the opening of the fifth World Parks Congress in Durban.

The skeletons of another four supposed victims of a Durban serial killer were found over the weekend, a police spokesperson reported on Sunday.

New evidence of interference in the selection process for South Africa’s controversial arms deal has emerged from documents recently obtained under access to information legislation.

The leadership of South Africa’s Catholic Church on Wednesday welcomed the government’s undertaking to mount an anti-retroviral HIV/Aids treatment programme, but warned that logistical problems should not slow down the programme’s roll-out.

The glaring absence of President Thabo Mbeki from the first South African Aids Conference, and the health minister’s ongoing sidelining of science in favour of politics, took much of the gloss off the conference’s undoubted achievements.

Confusion still reigns over the degree of government commitment to providing treatment for rape survivors. And where such treatment exists it remains difficult to access.

The Medicines Control Council (MCC) played with semantics at the South African Aids conference on Wednesday when it said it would not ban nevirapine — except, perhaps, for use in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

The debate about nevirapine to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV to babies takes centre stage at South Africa’s first Aids Conference in Durban on Wednesday.

A professor of microbiology at George Washington University in the US capital said on Monday he lost ”priceless” work on an Aids vaccine when he was mugged at knife-point while attending an Aids conference in South Africa.

HIV is overwhelmingly a disease of young people — those under the age of 24 — and women, South Africa’s national Aids conference heard on Monday.

HIV-positive judge Edwin Cameron is to lead a delegation of people living with HIV on Monday when they protest their exclusion from key events at the South African Aids Conference in Durban.

A US congressional staff delegation, led by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, would visit South Africa in the next month to focus on HIV/Aids, US ambassador to South Africa Cameron R Hume said in Durban on Tuesday.

The Scorpions have served a new summons on embattled Durban businessman Schabir Shaik to answer questions relating to their investigation of his relationship with former transport minister Mac Maharaj.