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Earth's most imperiled and iconic wildlife are facing tough decisions under increasing human pressure and limited resources. Swimming across rivers and water bodies filled with high densities of predators may be one such example. In African lions Panthera leo, previous water crossings (recorded in the peer‐reviewed and gray literature, on film, and found using Google Search, and YouTube) have recorded distances ranging from <10 to 100 m, with some resulting in mortality by Nile Crocodiles Crocodylis niloticus. However, we observed a coalition of male lions swimming >1 km across Uganda's Kazinga channel located in the Queen Elizabeth National Park six times, and recorded this behavior on film on February 1st 2024. We speculate that three factors could be driving these lions to take long‐distance swims with a high density of crocodiles and hippos Hippopotamus amphibius, namely (1) the lack of lionesses in this ecosystem, (2) intraspecific fights over territory with other male coalitions, and (3) the only other land connection giving lions access to the peninsula is a small road bridge with a strong human presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Volta River Authority is starting this year the construction of the Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam Project (PMDP) on the White Volta River across the Upper East and Northern regions of Ghana with the aim to foster economic development in several ways: (i) developing the irrigation potential of the White Volta plains, (ii) mitigating the flood impacts downstream of the dam, (iii) improving Ghana’s power system and (iv) generating secondary benefits through related activities such as fishery and domestic water supply. This project, studied by Tractebel since the early 1990s, was always governed by the principle to balance the benefits between antagonistic objectives. Dedicated operation rules have been defined to improve the overall benefits. Limitation of the extent of the reservoir and its related environmental and social impacts have also been taken into account to define the final design. This paper aims to present how all these benefits have been estimated and compared to lead to the final design under implementation.