Intimidation and Illegal Arrests to Derail the Case Filed Against the Tanzanian Government by Four Loliondo Villages

View from the Termite Mound A blog about threats against Maasai land in Loliondo - Thomson Safaris, OBC and ruthless hypocrisy.

Themes: Conservation, Human rights, Poverty, Parks

In this blog post: “Secret” intimidation and illegal arrest campaign. eNCA piece about Loliondo - husband of interviewed family currently in police custody. The hearing. Another, maybe unrelated, wave of arrests. Kigwangalla’s budget presentation and the timid opposition reaction to Loliondo. Oakland’s response to the Tanzanian government. Manyerere Jackton again. What has happened? (summary that’s very useful for newcomers).

Tanzania’s Maasai face ongoing threats, intimidation, and arrests.

Themes: Conservation, Human rights, Indigenous people, Tourism, Parks

Mongolia's reindeer herders fear lost identity under hunting ban.

Themes: Conservation, Indigenous people, Parks

Loliondo Report by the Oakland Institute and Kigwangalla Makes his U-turn Even More Extreme

Themes: Conservation, Human rights, Indigenous people, Tourism, Parks, Poverty

In this blog post: Report by the Oakland Institute; Kigwangalla becomes like his shamelessly lying predecessors; Livestock detained at Wasso market; Secret meeting for a “friendlier special authority”; OBC’s gift to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism; Summary for newcomers.

Losing the Serengeti:

The Maasai Land that was to Run Forever

Themes: Conservation, Parks, Tourism, Indigenous people

Based on field research, never publicly-seen-before documents, and an in-depth investigation into Tanzania’s land laws. This report is the first to reveal the complicity between Tanzanian government officials and foreign companies as they use conservation laws to dispossess the Maasai, driving them into smaller and smaller areas and creating a stifling map of confinement.

Escape from Protection: The Catastrophe of Conservation in Panama.

Typified by The Nature Conservancy and The World Wildlife Fund, Global Conservation as such is really an arm of colonialist foreign policy going back at least a century, and its fundamental aims have not changed.

Themes: Human rights, Indigenous people, Parks, Poverty, Conservation

Cloaked under a veneer of idealism, protected area conservation is a cynical and ubiquitous foreign policy charade, harming both the environment and its inhabitants throughout the world. Indigenous residents are displaced either as a matter of policy by force or through ecosystem degradation, depending on the protected area category set by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Swiss-based body for conservation, founded in 1947 as a lesser-known leg in the postwar international system.

Fenced out of nature.

Outside Kruger National Park, the people who once lived inside may be the key to the reserve’s future.

Themes: Conservation, Human rights, Parks, Poverty

Kruger National Park and the communities around its borders represent the global front line in the battle against rhino poaching. South Africa contains the largest remaining rhino populations in the world, and most of the killing is happening in and around Kruger. In these villages, residents are caught in the middle of an escalating fight between poachers and conservationists — one that has grown in intensity and violence as prices skyrocket. Poor and dispossessed, these villages potentially hold the key to solving this crisis in the long run, and yet distrust runs deep.

Illegal evictions of Baiga indigenous people from India’s Kanha National Park.

Themes: Conservation, FPIC, Human rights, Indigenous people, Parks

In March 2017, India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority issued a notice asking 17 states to suspend the rights of indigenous peoples and other forest dwellers in critical tiger habitats.