Namibia

facade of one-story home

New project seeks to solve housing crisis using mushroom byproduct and troublesome weed

The Big Fix

In Namibia, MycoHAB is hoping to solve two issues for the price of one: make use of a pesky plant known as the encroacher bush and deal with the country’s housing crisis. By harvesting the water-intensive weeds that encroach on farmland and combining them with a mushroom byproduct known as mycelium, MycoHAB founder and architect Chris Maurer creates bricks to build homes. The World’s Carolyn Beeler spoke to Maurer to learn more.

Ghana has been producing commercial oil since 2010.

As global oil prices surge, some African countries may see a silver lining

Two human skulls are shown in a glass case with several people wearing dark suits in the background.

Germany apologizes for genocide in Namibia

Top of The World
Namibian citizens protest in New York

Africans take Germany to court in New York over ‘forgotten genocide’

Justice
The Goreangab water treatment plant uses a process that partially mimics nature to turn sewage from Winhoek's 300,000 residents back into potable water. It opened in 1968 and was the first such plant in the world.

Recycling sewage into drinking water is no big deal. They’ve been doing it in Namibia for 50 years.

Environment
Elephant

The largest-ever world wildlife conference made progress on stemming illegal wildlife trade

Justice

Every three years or so, the Convention on International Trade Of Endangered Species (CITES) meets to determine the best way to protect plants and animals traded across borders. The most recent meeting was deemed a great success by most of the participants.

The otherworldliness of Namibia.

Fury Road: Did Oscar-winning ‘Mad Max’ damage world’s oldest desert?

Environment

The movie won six Oscars. It was filmed in the Namib Desert. But while parts of Namibia have the look of a wasteland, this rugged exterior hosts a fragile ecosystem.

Genocide in South-West Africa, committed by German soldiers, decimated the Herero and Namaqua tribes. These survivors escaped into the Omaheke desert.

For one Namibian activist, the fight against apartheid was personal

Global Politics

Israel Kaunatjike’s family tree links the victims and perpetrators of a forgotten genocide.

Soldiers from the U.S. Army put on one of three pairs of protective gloves during their final session of personal protective equipment training.

How ‘big data’ could help stop the spread of Ebola

Health

When it comes to containing an outbreak like Ebola, anticipating where it might spread next is crucial. Until somewhat recently, however, the only way to do that was through untimely census records. But with the proliferation of so-called “big data,” epidemiologists can track in real time where West Africans are headed — and where they might be spreading the disease.

A doorway half-buried by sand in Kolmanskop, Namibia

How the sands of time have almost swallowed a German ghost town in the Namibian desert

Arts, Culture & Media

French photographer Romain Veillon has a thing for taking pictures of abandoned places. And you can’t get much more abandoned than Kolmanskop, a German diamond mining town in Namibia that became a virtual ghost town in the early 1950s. Veillon visited Kolmanskop last summer, and returned to France with 4,500 photos of a place where time, but not sand, has stood still for decades.