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In recent years, the situation of Hooded Vulture Necrosyrtes monachus in West Africa has gone sour. However, in some restricted area in this region the species is still found in relative abundance. To find out more about the situation in West Africa, we set out to assess and ascertain the status of the Hooded Vulture in Northern Benin. We conducted road counts, on paved and unpaved roads and along small trails over a total length of 1451 km linking a total of 33 towns and townships. While the road counts were being conducted, we also explored and examined potential threats in Hooded Vultures based on interviews conducted with local abattoir watchmen, veterinarians, butchers and foresters. A total of 52 Hooded Vultures were counted mostly in the departments of Atacora (32) but also in Alibori (10) and Borgou (10). The relative abundance was four Hooded Vultures per 100 km, highlighting the near extirpation of this bird from Benin. A total of 49 interviews revealed that poaching for belief-based use (through shooting, and traps) and decreasing food availability remain the most important threats for Hooded Vultures in Northern Benin. If these threats are not mitigated, we predict the extirpation of the Hooded Vulture in the years ahead in Benin. Conservation measures including awareness campaigns, and the improvement and enforcement of legislation to guarantee the protection of Hooded Vultures, must be urgently implemented for their conservation.

During the last decades, the critically endangered Hooded Vulture Necrosyrtes monachus has strongly declined across its African range. Although direct persecution has been suggested as a major cause of this decline, little is known about the impact of humans on reproductive output in West Africa. We studied the impact of human activities on the reproductive output of Hooded Vultures in the Garango area of Burkina Faso. Twenty and 56 nesting attempts were monitored, respectively, during the breeding season in 2013/14 and 2014/15, to determine reproductive success and identify causes of nest failure. Annual breeding success varied between 0.68 and 0.71 chicks fledged per breeding pair per year and productivity was assessed at 0.57 chicks fledged per territorial pair in 2014/15. The main threats imposed by humans were poaching of eggs, chicks and collection of nest materials, leading to 20% (13 out of 64 breeding attempts) of nest failures over the two years. An additional important reason for nest failure was the pruning and (partial) cutting of nest trees. Despite this high level of human interference, we found that Hooded Vulture nest success increased with proximity to human settlements, probably because breeding vultures benefit from protection by people against persecution and disturbance.Keywords: Burkina Faso, conservation, Hooded Vulture, human impact, reproduction

This study aims to determine the contribution of renewable energy to large scale and standalone application in Ethiopia. The assessment starts by determining the present energy system and the available potentials. Subsequently, the contribution of the available potentials for large scale and standalone applications are determined taking into account the present energy system. The present energy system shows a large variation between urban and rural consumption. Almost all rural households depend on traditional biomass-based energy for cooking, while about 90% of urban households use electricity for lighting. The current national energy consumption from petroleum and electricity only accounts for 7% of the total energy demand; implying the largest energy need for cooking. The current annual Ethiopian household's energy demand for cooking is ten times as large as the household use for cooking in western countries. About 90% of the energy is lost to the ambient air as a result of the inefficient conversion system during cooking. However, the country has an annual exploitable electric energy potential of 7.5 PWh from solar energy, 4 PWh from wind energy and 0.2 PWh from hydroelectric energy. These renewable sources can supply enough energy to fulfill the demand; however, the energy carrier (electricity) is not appropriate for heating/cooking food, since cooking appliances on electricity are expensive in rural areas. While renewable energy sources can fulfill energy needs at a national scale, they are not at all suitable for fulfilling energy needs in rural areas except lighting and some elementary services. Therefore prevailing western approaches to renewable energy supply systems do not solve energy problems in developing countries. This shows the urgent need for addressing the energy demand for cooking. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Nature is most often valued in terms of its provision of ecosystem goods and services to meet human needs. However, such instrumental valuations, informed by ecological economics, are limited by the mainly anthropocentric orientation. We present a framework to assess anthropocentric and nonanthropocentric instrumental values of nature in a balanced way, in association with sustainability science. Particular attention is Paid to ecosystem functions, to be valued both for their benefits to human beings and for their importance to the ecological and evolutionary functioning of the global ecosystem.