The Maasai living in Loliondo and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area are facing a brutal eviction campaign. The Tanzanian government has carried out several forced evictions, burned houses, killed the Maasai’s animals, and marginalised the Maasai.
Thanks for reading REDD-Monitor! Subscribe to receive new posts and support my work.
The aim is to remove them from their lands to make way for conservation, tourism, and trophy hunting. The evictions carried out in 2022 were particularly violent. Armed police, soldiers, and the anti-riot Field Force Unit started demarcating a 1,500 square kilometre area of Maasai village land as a game reserve.
A company called Otterlo Business Corporation has lobbied for many years to have the 1,500 km² of Maasai village land turned into a protected area. Otterlo Business Corporation organises trophy hunting in Tanzania, on the Maasai’s land, for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president, prime minister, minister of defence of the United Arab Emirates, and the ruler of Dubai.
The United Arab Emirates is, of course, host to COP 28, the UN climate meeting this year.
If you’ve not yet signed Rainforest Rescue’s petition to stop the evictions, please join the 134,650 people who have done so:
A high-profile delegation of Maasai representatives starts a tour in several European countries this May, seeking international support to halt the ongoing forced evictions and human rights abuses against the Maasai people in Tanzania.
The Maasai have lived for generations in the Serengeti ecosystem in Tanzania and have shaped and protected these lands, preserving wildlife and biodiversity in areas such as Loliondo, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the now Serengeti National Park. However, they have been systematically marginalised and violently evicted from their ancestral lands to make way for conservation projects, tourism, and trophy-hunting schemes, severely violating their human and constitutional rights. This has also happened with the support of conservation NGOs like the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) and European funding.
In recent years, the Tanzanian government has been running a brutal campaign against the Maasai, characterised by forced evictions which have already affected tens of thousands of Maasai people across various regions. In 2022, the evictions of the Maasai in Loliondo to make way for a tourism and conservation operation were marked by extreme violence. The Tanzanian government has also paralysed the availability and access to vital social services, such as health services in Ngorongoro, as a weapon to force the Maasai out of their ancestral land. The government is running a brutal campaign against Maasai in Tanzania.
European governments, EU institutions and NGOs like FZS are involved directly or indirectly in tourism and conservation projects in Tanzania, including in the Ngorongoro district. Therefore, the delegation will visit Germany, Austria, and the EU headquarters in Brussels to raise their concerns. Its goal is to ensure these government entities take measures to respect and promote the human rights of the Maasai and prevent their financial support to the Tanzanian government from enabling further forced evictions and violence.
The Maasai delegation insists on the need to change the current tourism and conservation model, which promotes the vision that nature protection must be separated from human settlement. Indigenous peoples in many countries are being evicted in the name of conservation, and their livelihoods are destroyed, such as the lives of the Maasai. The delegation demands that: i) EU Member states and European institutions halt funding for tourism and conservation projects that violate human rights and ii) they ensure that international partnerships fully respect and promote land rights and human rights.
The Maasai delegation hopes that by raising awareness of these issues and garnering international support, they can help end the ongoing forced evictions and human rights abuses against their people in Tanzania. They also wish to show the dark side of tourism and correct the false assumptions about conservation, which have devastating consequences on their lives and lands. The Maasai’s traditional way of life is not incompatible with the protection of the environment. On the contrary, the Maasai shape and protect nature and biodiversity – if only they are free to access and move in their lands.
Background information on the conflict and demands of the Maasai:
The Pastoralists Indigenous Non-Governmental Organization’s Forum (PINGO’s Forum) is an advocacy coalition of 53 indigenous peoples’ organisations working in Tanzania for the rights of the marginalised indigenous pastoralist and hunter-gatherer communities. It was established in 1994 by six pastoralist and hunter-gatherer organisations in their struggle for land rights and development.
The Maasai delegation to Europe is supported by a group of NGOs and civil society organisations in solidarity with the Maasai people of Tanzania. They work to raise awareness, foster international solidarity, and give Maasai people a voice as they are being criminalised. They further advocate for policy changes that will help the Maasai communities live in harmony with their land and wildlife, free from forced evictions and human rights abuses.
Thanks for reading REDD-Monitor! Subscribe to receive new posts and support my work.
Interesting thought experiment- using "conservation" and "trophy hunting" in combination. Or, "tourism" and "conservation". The other clever ploy, which might set a precedent for other countries, is to simply deny that the people are "Indigenous." Not that a presumption of Indigenous or non-Indigenous should in any way affect human rights. This is another example of a government acting as the enforcement agency of the business, while human rights are waved in an act of "othering." Thus, Tanzania appears to be a "justice-free" zone.
Interesting thought experiment- using "conservation" and "trophy hunting" in combination. Or, "tourism" and "conservation". The other clever ploy, which might set a precedent for other countries, is to simply deny that the people are "Indigenous." Not that a presumption of Indigenous or non-Indigenous should in any way affect human rights. This is another example of a government acting as the enforcement agency of the business, while human rights are waved in an act of "othering." Thus, Tanzania appears to be a "justice-free" zone.