09/03/2012 Newsround

Evening, everyone, Newsround is on air. We are live just after 5.00pm.

I'm Ricky, and she's Nel. Stay right where you are cos we've

got a full round-up of today's top stories.

Coming up: Lea finds out what happens when wildlife gets extra

protection. And a solar storm lighting up the sky.

But first, to a call for urgent action in West Africa. The charity

Oxfam says a drought in the Sahel region could turn into a disaster

affecting 13 million people if something isn't done soon.

The region spreads from Senegal in the west to Chad in the centre of

the continent and children are some of the worst affected.

Today Oxfam's launched an appeal to help.

Images from Africa that are very familiar, and now more than one

million children are at risk of starvation.

Drought in west and central Africa has led to poor harvests, and the

situation is being made worse by high food prices and fighting which

has forced people from their homes. All that means families have not

been able to get the food they need to survive. The situation is so bad

that people in Chad in central Africa are digging up ant hills to

gather grain that the ants have stored.

Jo Harrison works for Oxfam and is in Mali. She explained to me what

can be done to stop the disaster. Droughts are a way of life here.

They happen every few years, so we can't stop them happening, but what

we can do is give people the right tools and the right equipment so

that they can prepare for when there is no rain and they can't

grow food. Oxfam has been doing things, like helping people to dig

wells so when the rain does come, it fills up with water and will

last for much longer amounts of time.

Last year I was in East Africa where a famine killed thousands of

people. Aid agencies now say that thousands of lives could have been

saved if the world had responded sooner.

Charities like Oxfam say the only way to prevent a humanitarian

disaster in the West of Africa is to act now.

Next up, we're talking about adoption. The Government says there

are more than 6,700 children in England who are living in care and

waiting to be adopted. But the latest figures show the colour of

your skin could affect how long you wait to find a family. On average

children who are black have to wait twice as long as those who are

white. That's because up untill now adoption authorities have made a

real effort to match children with families who come from the same

ethnic background. But that means sometimes black kids

have to wait much longer to be adopted. Now the Prime Minister

wants to cut down the waiting time and says the most important thing

is for children to find a loving family, and their race shouldn't

matter. We're joined by KJ Simmons. You spent a lot of your childhood

in care. Do you think skin colour matters when families adopt?

don't think it should, but unfortunately, as we have seen, it

seems to matter very much so for me it shouldn't matter at all. The

most important thing is a family should be loving and caring to make

the child a better person. Some would argue the cultural

differences may actually make it harder for a black family to bring

up a white kid. Would you agree? completely disagree with that. This

is the one time I agree with David Cameron. For me, being with a white

family has not hurt my cultural background, and actually I

flourished with these families. you think it might affect kids

later on in life when they want to find out about their back grounds?

No, why should it? It's up to the foster family or their parents in

adoption to integrate that culture into their life. Thank you very

much for coming in. Now this week, Leah's been

travelling all over the UK to bring you the biggest stories from our

coastline. For her final Wild 5 report she's

travelled to an island where Imagine a place where marine life

was allowed to live without any interference. Well, that place is

Lundy Island, and it's where the fight-back to save our coastal life

begins. There is a catch, though. The only way we can get to this

island, which is ten miles north of the Devon coast is by getting a

ride on that helicopter there. It's about six minutes.

This island is very small - just three miles from north to south.

Hundreds of years ago, it was a refuge for pirates. Just about to

touch down and find out what this island is all about.

Here we are! Only 28 people live here all year round. The best place

to get a sense of the island is to head to the coastline. One of the

reasons this island attracts lots of rich marine life is we have the

warm currents of the Bristol Channel here which meets the

Atlantic on the west coast of the island. It's this unusual mix of

warm currents and cooler waters which create the ideal conditions

for marine life to settle - species like grey seals, lobsters to sunset

corals and sponges. Now this place is a marine conservation zone, the

only one in England. There is to fishing. Divers aren't allowed to

collect any crustaceans. All of those plants and animals and

creatures can be left to their own devices with very minimal impact to

us. That's why Lundy has made it on to the Wild 5 card. The Government

decided the marine life here was so special it needed protecting.

Groups like the Marine Conservation Society decide which sites are

protected. The Government will decide on 127 sites next year.

They're putting pressure on the Scottish Government to name sites

there. People in Wales are set to have their say on sites this spring.

All week I have been on my journey around coastal Britain and I have

seen some of the challenges it's facing, but with so many people

working hard to protect their coastlines, there is no reason

marine life across the UK shouldn't keep going from strength to

strength. Nice one.

If you missed any of Leah's Wild 5 series, catch up on our website. Do

it this weekend! Finally, remember that solar storm we told you might

cause big problems for satellites? So far there's not been much

disruption but it did result in these amazing sightings of the

Northern Lights over Sweden. Unfortunately, the full moon in the

UK means you probably won't be able to see the same thing here. It's a