Connect with us

NGO WORK

Tanzanian Government’s Sustained Campaign Against the Maasai in Loliondo and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Published

3 years ago

on

Displaced child caring for his younger brother. Credit: Maasai Youth.

Over 2,000 Maasai — primarily women and children — displaced by the violence with which the demarcation of land was carried out in Loliondo, remain in Kenya, suffering from hunger and living in fear. Approximately 70,000 people have lost access to dry-season grazing land critical to the health of their livestock and their livelihoods according to research conducted by the Institute’s partners. In addition to the 31 people who were shot and sustained injuries requiring expensive medical treatment, 107 people needed care after the violence.

“A pervasive climate of fear remains among the displaced whose lives have been completely upended,” said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director at the Oakland Institute.

Violence erupted on June 8, 2022 after the Tanzanian government initiated the demarcation of 1,500 km2 of land it intends to turn into a game reserve for trophy hunting by the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based Otterlo Business Company. Earlier in July, the Oakland Institute revealed that despite widespread international condemnation, the Tanzanian government continues to blatantly ignore domestic and international law, trampling on the rights and lives of the Indigenous residents in Loliondo.

The land that was demarcated and renamed the “Pololeti Game Controlled Area” is legally registered to 15 villages of Loliondo and Sale divisions in Ngorongoro district. Game officials seized hundreds of cattle in July and 50 livestock were reportedly shot to death by the rangers for grazing in this area around Ormanie and Kirtalo villages. Confiscated livestock was also auctioned off(link is external) quickly, giving the Maasai inadequate time to reclaim it.

Over the past few weeks, dozens of Maasai have been arrested and released on bail on the false charges of being “illegal immigrants.” In July, the family of the 80-year old Maasai elder who was shot during the violence and remains missing, and the family of a man killed by a police vehicle in Malambo, started court cases in Arusha. 27 people — including 10 ward councilors — have been detained for several weeks after being charged for the murder of one policeman, reportedly killed by an arrow during demarcation. Their case will be heard on July 28, 2022.

NCA Relocation Sites Remain Critically Flawed

On July 22, 2022, Dr. Christopher Timbuka, Deputy Conservation Commissioner of the NCA, said(link is external) that 757 households (4,344 people) had registered to move from the NCA to Msomera village in Handeni district. Dr. Timbuka explicitly stated(link is external) that the strategy of relocating NCA residents is geared towards the realization of the government’s goal of attracting 1.2 million tourists annually to Tanzania and an income of Sh260 billion [~US$111.5 million] by 2025 from the sector. He reiterated that those who relocate would benefit from owning land and houses in addition to accessing water, education, and health services in Msomera.

As the Tanzanian government continues to move forward with preparation of resettlement sites for so-called “volunteers” from the NCA, new field research to Msomera village in Handeni district raises serious concerns around the government promises. As previously exposed in the Oakland Institute report: Flawed Plans for Relocation of the Maasai from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, there are several issues with the resettlement process, adequacy of the selected sites, and major discrepancies between government promises and the actual situation on the ground. Follow up field research conducted in July 2022 exposed little progress has been made by the government — as questions remain if Msomera will be able to provide adequate water, electricity, education, and health services to the resettled.

Currently, approximately 100 homes constructed earlier this year are occupied by former NCA residents. Grazing land, however, is very limited, as is the number of cattle allowed. “Government’s promise that Maasai can bring their herds of cattle to graze freely has already been broken as only 2-5 cows are permitted per family. This confirms fears that the government is moving the Maasai away from their traditional pastoral livelihoods which they have practiced for centuries. Given the critical role cattle play in the livelihoods, nutrition, and culture of the Maasai, the damage this will do cannot be understated,” added Mittal.

Despite these constraints, 300-400 more houses are currently under construction in the area. The old primary school and dispensary have been painted but promises of expanded facilities remain unfulfilled. It is unclear how the Handeni relocation site will support the high number of Maasai the government expects to “voluntarily” leave the NCA. Government’s claims that Maasai are volunteering en masse for resettlement are false. Plans to deprive Maasai of basic services within the NCA and transferring funds away from the area are a blatant attempt to drive the Maasai from their ancestral land.

Painted primary school in Msomera village.
Painted primary school in Msomera village.

In April 2022, 11,000 Maasai community members from the NCA sent a letter to the government and its main donors, clearly stressing their demand to remain in the NCA. “This is not the first time that we are fighting to secure our rights and protect the lives of our people — we need a permanent solution and we need it now. We will not leave; Not Now, Not Ever!”

In a June 15, 2022 press release(link is external), nine UN Special Rapporteurs called on the Tanzanian government to “immediately halt plans for relocation of the people living in Loliondo and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and begin consultations with the Maasai Indigenous Peoples, including direct contact with the Ngorongoro Pastoral Council, to jointly define current challenges to environmental conservation and best avenues to resolve them, while maintaining a human rights-based approach to conservation.” This call followed earlier communications sent to the government and UNESCO World Heritage Committee advisory bodies.

In mid-July, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet visited(link is external) Tanzania and met with Damas Ndumbaro, Minister of Constitution and Legal Affairs, to discuss the human rights abuses in Loliondo and planned evictions from the NCA. Given the blatant lies propagated by the government, its continued disregard for the land rights and lives of the Maasai for safari tourism enriching the elites, the Oakland Institute reaffirms calls for the High Commissioner, other UN human rights experts, and donor countries to meet with the impacted communities to accurately assess the situation on the ground. Continuation of colonial conservation at the expense of the lives and future of the Maasai is no longer possible.

Original Source: oaklandinstitute.org

Related posts:

Worldwide Condemnation Over Violence against the Maasai by Tanzania Security Forces Tanzanian Government Continues Violent Repression of the Maasai in Loliondo Despite Worldwide Condemnation Call to Sever Ties with Tanzanian Government Over Latest Human Rights Abuses Against the Maasai URGENT ALERT – Heavy Police Presence in Loliondo as Threats of Mass Evictions of the Maasai Intensify Justice Denied: East African Court of Justice Grants Tanzanian Government Impunity to Trample Human Rights of the Maasai
Related Topics:
Continue Reading

NGO WORK

Communities stand up against corporate land grabs and State violence

Published

17 hours ago

on

May 6, 2025

By

Across the global South, communities that oppose corporate control of their territories face not only corporate violence but also tear gas, batons and state repression. Challenging the expedient misinterpretation of “all land belongs to the State” that governments use to protect corporate interests, communities stand strong in the struggle to reclaim their ancestral lands “because it is a sacred place; it is a place that gives meaning to our existence.”

This editorial is about the courage and determination of communities who are mobilizing to denounce and resist corporate control over community lands. Often, they face not only corporate violence and control over their lands but also tear gas, batons and state repression unleashed by governments resorting to ‘a greedy misinterpretation of “all land belongs to the State”’ to protect corporate interests. (1)

This is what has been happening in the Litoral region of Cameroon, where the community of Apouh à Ngog is opposing the replanting of industrial oil palm plantations on their ancestral lands by Socapalm, a Cameroonian subsidiary of the notorious multinational Socfin. For nearly 50 years, the company operations have been making life miserable for the community of Apouh à Ngog, whose original village site was eradicated by the corporate oil palm plantations decades ago.

As Socapalm replaces sections of old oil palm plantations, it not only ignores community requests for retrocession of vital spaces immediately around the village; the new company plantings are creeping even closer to the village edge. “If they do not stop these operations, the women who live close to Socapalm in Edéa will have to endure another 50 years of suffering, abuse, rape, theft, hunger, frustration and violation of our rights, our privacy and our dignity”. This is what the Association of Women Neighbouring SOCAPALM Edéa (AFRISE) explains in a petition calling for an end to this occupation of the village’s vital life spaces by RSPO-certified Socapalm. (2)

In January 2025, the women of AFRISE planted banana saplings on some 35 hectares of disputed land being prepared for replanting by Socapalm. The company sprayed the young banana plants with chemicals shortly after and on 24 March, returned under the protection of dozens of armed military personnel to continue the replanting. Overcoming fear and facing tear gas and batons, the community stood in the way of the company’s bulldozers, blocking the corporate replanting for days. As the company forged on with its planting, over 60 organisations called for an immediate stop to the continued corporate encroachment on the community’s ancestral lands. They also urged the government of Cameroon to guarantee vital living space for the community of Apouh à Ngog – instead of sending in armed military forces to protect the corporate interest of Socfin, a company that like few others epitomizes the colonial pattern of exploitation of the region.

It is also what has been happening in the municipality of Aracruz, in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo, where about 1000 women from the Rural Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) took action to demand agrarian reform and against the multiple forms of violence perpetrated against women. (3) Under the slogan, “Agribusiness means violence and environmental crimes. The struggle of women is against capital”, they occupied land controlled by Suzano, the world’s largest exporter of wood pulp.  For years, the company has gone about its business with impunity, amassing large areas of fertile land and committing violations against Indigenous Peoples, quilombola and landless peasant communities. In a press release, the MST points out that “Multinationals are not worried about obtaining land in order to solve the problem of hunger in the country” and that it would be possible to settle more than 100,000 families on the 2.7 million hectares of fertile land in Brazil that are held by Suzano. In 2011, Suzano agreed to provide 22 areas occupied by the corporation for settlements of landless peasants, but the company has been failing to comply with its commitment.
Just as AFRISE in Apouh à Ngog, the women occupying the land in Aracruz vow to continue their struggle for land to grow food, as they, too, are confronted with a state siding with the company, not peasants. (4)

It is also what has been happening in Cote d’Ivoire, where 20 members of the indigenous Winnin community were arrested in December 2024. The Winnin have been voicing their opposition to the privatization of their ancestral lands at the Monogaga forest. (5) The Winnin have called these forests their home for more than six centuries. The Ivorian Ministry of Water and Forests, meanwhile, granted a concession to Roots Wild Foundation whose operations have already been causing conflict with the communities. The arrests and the threats to individuals of the Winnin prior to their detention highlight serious concerns about the criminalization of land defenders in the region.

It is also what is happening in Indonesia, in Papua, and across the Mekong region, as we read in two declarations we share in this edition of the bulletin. In Papua, the Solidaritas Merauke Movement came together to share stories of collective suffering and trauma caused by state-corporate crimes, especially in the name of what the government of Indonesia declared National Strategic Projects (PSN). The declaration, collectively prepared by the Solidaritas Merauke Movement, highlights community struggles against the dispossession of their living space by such state-corporate mega-projects that defile what communities hold sacred. In Thailand, communities from the Mekong region and Punan communities from North Kalimantan in Indonesia came together to exchange and learn about community struggles against mega-hydrodam projects.  On the occasion of the International Day of Action Against Dams on 14 March, they reaffirm through a declaration the importance of standing together to show that “we are united and firm in the collective struggle to defend our rivers, forests and futures from false green solutions and corporate greed”.

In an interview with WRM in 2018, a leader of the Akroá-Gamela Peoples in Brazil explains why despite the fear of state repression and violence from greedy corporations, communities stand strong in the struggle to reclaim their ancestral lands: “because it is a sacred place; it is a place that gives meaning to our existence.” (6)

Because land gives meaning to their existence, communities are standing up against corporate violence and governments’ greedy misinterpretation of “all land belongs to the State”. In Apouhs à Ngog, Aracruz and the many other places, communities are organizing to protect and reclaim the lands of their ancestors – The struggle continues!

WRM Secretariat

(1) WRM Bulletin 241. 2018. A Reflection from Africa: Conquer the Fear for Building Stronger Movements.  
(2) Petition. Cameroon: Testimony of women who reclaim their land back.
(3) Against capital and patriarchy, MST women hold day of struggle and occupy Suzano-owned eucalyptus plantations in Brazil.
(4) Brasil de Fato. 2025. Justiça determina despejo de ocupação de mulheres do MST em área da Suzano no ES.  
(5) Mongabay. 2025. Des leaders communautaires emprisonnés après s’être opposés à la privatisation controversée d’une forêt classée en Côte d’Ivoire.
(6) WRM Bulletin 241. 2018. Brazil: I am Kum’tum, I am of the Akroá-Gamela People.  

Source: World Rainforest Movement

Related posts:

We are unwaveringly committing ourselves to fight land grabs for tree plantation projects in Africa – leaders of victim communities. Mr. Mafumu Paul and his accomplices at police after their arrest.State House Anti-Corruption Unit nets a surveyor implicated in Mubende district land-grabs Is gun violence and state power…determining land ownership in Uganda? Palm oil company uses armed forces, tear gas against protesting villagers in Cameroon Land grabs: Officials in Mubende district are colluding with economically powerful and politically connected people to grab local communities’ land.
Continue Reading

NGO WORK

Under Guise of Climate Action, the World Bank Launches Fresh Offensive on Land Rights

Published

5 days ago

on

May 2, 2025

By

  • A new report exposes the exploitation of the climate crisis by the World Bank to advance a global land grab agenda for corporate interests that will fuel dispossession across the Global South.
  • Under the guise of accessing land for climate action, the Bank intends to open lands for agribusiness, mining, and carbon offsetting schemes – while undermining Indigenous and community land rights.
  • The Bank’s agenda to change land tenure directly contradicts recommendations made by climate experts, who uphold agroecology and the protection of lands from conversion and overexploitation as real solutions to the climate crisis.

Ahead of the World Bank’s 2025 Land Conference starting on May 5th in Washington D.C., a new Oakland Institute report exposes how the financial institution is using the pretext of climate crisis to push a global land “reform” agenda that favors corporate interests at the expense of people and the planet.

Climatewash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights reveals how the Bank is appropriating climate commitments made at the Conference of the Parties (COP) to justify its multibillion-dollar initiative to “formalize” land tenure across the Global South. While the Bank claims that it is necessary “to access land for climate action,” Climatewash uncovers that its true aim is to open lands to agribusiness, mining of “transition minerals,” and false solutions like carbon credits – fueling dispossession and environmental destruction. Alongside plans to spend US$10 billion on land programs, the World Bank has also pledged to double its agribusiness investments to US$9 billion annually by 2030.

“Hijacking the climate crisis, the Bank is attempting to breathe new life and political buy-in to an agenda it has pushed in the Global South for several decades – often met with resistance from local communities against the commodification of their land for exploitation and extraction,” said Frédéric Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute and lead author of the report. “Instead of strengthening and securing land rights, this plan will enable land grabs and exacerbate inequity and climate destruction,” he continued.

Climatewash details how the Bank’s land programs and policy prescriptions to governments dismantle collective land tenure systems and promote individual titling and land markets as the norm, paving the way for private investment and corporate takeover. These reforms, often financed through loans taken by governments, force countries into debt while pushing a “structural transformation” that displaces smallholder farmers, undermines food sovereignty, and prioritizes industrial agriculture and extractive industries.

Drawing on a thorough analysis of World Bank programs from around the world, including case studies from Indonesia, Malawi, Madagascar, the Philippines, and Argentina, Climatewash documents how the Bank’s interventions are already displacing communities and entrenching land inequality. The report debunks the Bank’s climate action rhetoric. It details how the Bank’s efforts to consolidate land for industrial agriculture, mining, and carbon offsetting directly contradict the recommendations of the IPCC, which emphasizes the protection of lands from conversion and overexploitation and promotes practices such as agroecology as crucial climate solutions.

“There is a blatant contradiction between the Bank’s narrative of accessing land for climate action and its support for industrial agriculture, which is a major driver of climate change and biodiversity loss,” said Andy Currier, Policy Analyst and co-author of the report. “The Bank’s fresh offensive on land rights highlights an untenable position of the institution. It claims to support climate action while it stands by its core objective – catering to corporate and financial powers seeking more economic growth and profits,” he concluded.

Source: oaklandinstitute.org

Related posts:

La Via Campesina Call to Action for the 27th UN Climate COP 30 civil society organizations have written to the World Bank Group demanding to publicly disclose the Africa Energy Approach paper. World Bank is backing dozens of new coal projects, despite climate pledges Forests Are Not Empty Spaces: To Save the Climate, Recognize Our Land Rights World Bank’s new scheme to privatize land in the developing world exposed
Continue Reading

NGO WORK

World Bank Fails to Remedy Harms it Caused in Tanzania, Despite a Scathing Investigation by its Inspection Panel

Published

1 month ago

on

April 3, 2025

By

Oakland, CA – A scathing investigation by the Inspection Panel of the World Bank confirms the responsibility of the Bank in enabling the expansion of Ruaha National Park and related severe human rights abuses in Tanzania. The Panel confirms “critical failures” of the institution in the planning and supervision of the Resilient Natural Resource Management for Tourism and Growth (REGROW) project that resulted in “serious harm” to communities and violated Bank’s safeguards and operating procedures.1

“The independent Inspection Panel has confirmed the Bank’s grave wrongdoing which devastated the lives of communities. Pastoralists and farmers who refused to be silenced amidst widespread government repression, are now vindicated, and Bank’s efforts to sweep human rights abuses under the rug laid bare,” said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute.

The REGROW project enabled the government to expand the Ruaha National Park and move ahead with eviction plans – formalized in October 2023 through Government Notice 754. The Bank directly funded TANAPA rangers who committed atrocities with no oversight. In a drastic turn from its initial defense of the project, the financial institution has been forced to recognize “weaknesses in the project design, preparation, implementation, and Bank supervision.” As a result, at least 84,000 people from 28 villages face eviction while pastoralists and farmers have suffered gruesome human rights abuses by Bank-funded rangers and over US$70 million in economic damages.

In documents made available today, the Bank’s management concedes that by “enhancing TANAPA’s capacity to enforce the law,” the project “increased the possibility of violent confrontations” between rangers and villagers. The Inspection Panel found the Bank to have failed to adequately supervise TANAPA and to be unaware of the agency’s operating framework which permits the rangers to use “excessive force,” in violation of international standards. As documented by the Institute, over the course of the project, at least 11 individuals were killed by police or rangers, five forcibly disappeared, and dozens suffered physical and psychological harm, including beatings and sexual violence. The Bank provided TANAPA rangers with 21 different types of equipment to strengthen their patrolling capacity in the project area – including bush knives that the Panel found “could potentially have been used to burn or strip naked” Maasai women in a May 2023 incident.

The Panel’s report documents the timeline of Bank’s failure to act after April 2023, when it was informed by the Oakland Institute about the abuses and violations of its safeguards. Instead, the Bank disbursed over US$33 million to the project over the next year. REGROW task team leader, Enos Esikuri, even publicly stated that the Bank was “very impressed with what is going on,” when meeting with government agencies implementing the project. In April 2024, disbursements were finally suspended as a result of Tanzania’s noncompliance with Bank safeguards, followed by cancelation of the project in November 2024.

“The World Bank failed to act after it was informed of the harms it was financing. It continued disbursements for a full year, allowing cattle seizures and farm closures to drain family savings, kept children out of school, and let TANAPA rangers murder more innocent villagers with impunity. No institution is above law and can be allowed to get away with crimes like this,” said Mittal.

The Bank’s Executive Directors, however, approved the Management Action Plan (MAP) that does not address the Panel’s findings. In blatant disregard of the facts and official documentation, the World Bank has conveniently refused to acknowledge its responsibility in allowing the park expansion, which it falsely claims took place prior to the project.  It is this expansion of Ruaha National Park that triggered murders, evictions, and decimated livelihoods. The MAP delusionally places trust in the government that there will be no resettlement while it is already well underway. The impacted communities conveyed their rejection of the MAP to the Bank’s Board and called for it to remedy the harms caused by park’s expansion by reverting boundaries to the 1998 borders, suspending livelihood restrictions, resuming basic services, and providing justice and reparations for victims.

“Instead of remedying harms identified by the Panel, the MAP patches together two projects that have nothing to do with REGROW and are in no way designed to provide redress. The Action Plan put forward by the World Bank is beyond shameful. Suggesting that tens of thousands of people forced out of their land can survive with “alternative livelihoods” such as clean cooking and microfinance is a slap on the face of the victims. It demonstrates World Bank’s continued lack of remorse for harms financed by tax dollars and makes a mockery of its own accountability mechanism. Financing of this institution – responsible for misery of the poor instead of ending poverty – must be challenged,” commented Mittal.

Despite fear of retribution from Tanzania’s repressive regime, the impacted communities were relentless in demanding justice till they forced the cancellation of the project. “For years we have waited for the World Bank to fix the disaster it created. Today the Board of the Bank has undoubtedly failed in its own mission, but we will not give up, no matter what it takes,” said a community representative.

“The World Bank’s financing commitments for operations in Tanzania amount to US$10 billion. It does have the leverage and authority to fix this catastrophe. The United States, as the largest shareholder and funder of the World Bank Group, must also take responsibility,” concluded Mittal.

Source: oaklandinstitute.org

Related posts:

Campaign Victory: World Bank Suspends Funding for REGROW, a Conservation Project Responsible for Evictions & Human Rights Abuses in Tanzania World Bank Project Cancelled in a Landmark Victory for Tanzanian Villagers The World Bank Must Be Held Accountable for Harm Inflicted on Tanzanian Communities by Tourism Project World Bank Changes: The office of the Accountability Mechanism Secretary is to be disbanded as the Inspection Panel, and the Dispute Resolution Service will operate independently. Witness Radio – Uganda and partners welcome a public acknowledgment of the complaint lodged before the World Bank’s Inspection Panel.
Continue Reading

Resource Center

Legal Framework

READ BY CATEGORY

Facebook

Newsletter

Subscribe to Witness Radio's newsletter



Trending

Subscribe to Witness Radio's newsletter