News stories by Kizito Makoye

ROME & DAR ES SALAAM, October 27 (IPS) - The message from Just Rights for Children (JRC) was clear: protecting children must take precedence over customs used to justify their marriage.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, October 22 (IPS) - A fishing boat’s catch tells only part of the story of the waters around World Heritage sites. Species that escape the net, shelter inside reefs or pass through deeper channels can go unrecorded, leaving communities and conservation officials with an incomplete picture of the marine life supporting coastal livelihoods.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, October 20 (IPS) - Nearly three decades have passed, but Japhet Gimbi still remembers the rain.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, October 9 (IPS) - Each morning on her way to Kariakoo, Clementina Nyangwine looks out of her commuter bus as it crawls through Jangwani and watches giant foundation piles rising above the muddy Msimbazi valley.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, September 30 (IPS) - Fatuma Makame learned to farm seaweed in the shallow water where her parents worked. These days, she grows it farther from shore.

DAR ES SALAAM, August 31 (IPS) - When the rains fail across Tanzania’s northern Maasai Steppe, herders drive their cattle farther in search of pasture and water.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, August 24 (IPS) - For pastoralists in Arvaikheer — a village in Mongolia’s dry central plains — rain can determine whether there is enough grass for cattle to roam, whether waterholes are replenished and whether families make it through another dry season. But as climate change makes rainfall increasingly unpredictable, even a wet season may no longer provide water and pasture needed to sustain people and livestock.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, August 21 (IPS) - The 14-year-old girl arrived at the hospital fighting for her life. After a tragic hit-and-run car accident, she was rushed into the emergency department with serious abdominal injuries. Every passing minute brought her closer to death.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, August 17 (IPS) - After moving more than 6,000 km across Eurasia, the Silk Road Caravan has reached Mongolia with stories from pastoralists whose livelihoods are increasingly threatened by drought, degraded land and shrinking access to grazing areas.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, July 23 (IPS) - Every morning, as the Indian Ocean retreats from the reef off Zanzibar’s Jambiani village, Chiku Chande steps into the knee-deep lagoon carrying bundles of seaweed seedlings. Years of farming these waters have taught her about every channel and coral outcrop. But lately, the corals that once glowed in brown and gold have become chalky white.