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Tanzanian High Court Tramples Rights of Indigenous Maasai Pastoralists to Boost Tourism Revenues

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  • Tanzanian High Court has dismissed a case filed by Maasai communities to return land violently seized by the government in June 2022 to establish the Pololeti Game Reserve for trophy hunting by the Emirati Royal Family in Loliondo.
  • In violation of Tanzanian law, impacted Maasai communities were neither consulted nor compensated for being forced from their land, critical for over 96,000 people living in legally registered villages in the area.
  • The ruling sets a dangerous precedent for Indigenous land rights across Tanzania and calls into question the independence of the judiciary that openly cited tourism revenues as a factor in its decision.

On October 24, 2024, the High Court of Tanzania dismissed a case (Misc. Civil Cause No. 18 of 2023) from impacted Maasai pastoralists challenging the creation of the Pololeti Game Reserve, which has resulted in crippling livelihood restrictions and widespread evictions to allow for trophy hunting in the area by the Emirati Royal Family. The shocking ruling deals a blow to Indigenous land rights across Tanzania and raises serious questions regarding the independence of the Tanzanian judiciary.

“The ruling has far-reaching consequences not only for the Maasai of Loliondo but to all people near protected areas. With this ruling, Maasai in Monduli, Simanjiro, Longido, and Ngaresero are now also at the risk of eviction without compensation,” said Denis Oleshangay, one of the advocates representing the community in the case.

On June 8, 2022, the government forcefully seized 1,500 square kilometers of land in Loliondo to create the Pololeti Game Controlled Area for the exclusive use of the Emirati Royal Family. Maasai communities protesting the theft of their land were met with violent retaliation by security forces who opened fire on the protestors. At least 30 people, including women, children, and elderly, were wounded. One elderly man was shot and remains missing over two years later while his family is still seeking answers. Thousands were displaced and fled to Kenya where they faced hunger and sickness. To suppress dissent, community members and civil society leaders have been criminalized and imprisoned for months on false charges.

Presiding over the case, Judge N.R. Mwaseba ruled that the needs of local communities should not take precedence over the value of the land to the economy. “The decision to promulgate the Pololeti Game Reserve was executed in good faith by the Government with a view to protect and ensure sustainable conservation in order to protect the natural resources, including the wild animals as a major source of foreign currency in our country…I have demonstrated above that the tourism sector is among the giant sectors contributing heavily to the national budget. It deserves close protection, including protection of the areas reserved for that purpose.”

In September 2023, in response to a separate case brought by impacted villagers (Misc. Civil Cause No. 21 of 2022(link is external)), the High Court of Tanzania ruled that because communities were not properly consulted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (MNRT) prior to the land use change, the Pololeti Game Controlled Area was illegal. The victory was short lived as President Samia Suluhu Hassan had also issued a separate decree (GN No. 604 of 2022) to upgrade the same area to become the Pololeti Game Reserve in October 2022. While communities defeated in court the first attempt by the MNRT to seize their land, they were forced to file another case (Misc. Civil Cause No. 18 of 2023) against the President’s Pololeti Game Reserve decree. This was dismissed despite questionable new evidence proving adequate consultation by the government.

“The discrepancy in rulings by the High Court demonstrates how the government can keep shopping for judges until it gets a favorable outcome, making a mockery of justice,” said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute. “Impacted communities must scramble to take action in the courts and even when they win, the government can still circumvent the ruling by issuing another decree.”

In the dismissed Misc. Civil Cause No. 18 of 2023, advocates for the communities documented how the creation of the game reserve has impacted over 96,000 people whose livelihoods depend on access to land for grazing and watering cattle. Pastoralists have faced massive fines and had livestock arbitrarily seized and killed by wildlife authorities despite the fact that pastoralists play a vital role in protecting the ecosystem. Over a dozen villages are now considered illegal within the Game Reserve, while villagers were neither consulted nor compensated for losing their lands, as required by Tanzanian law.

Live ammunition fired by Tanzanian security forces during demarcation of the Pololeti Game Controlled Area in June 2022

Despite international condemnation of the government’s violent land demarcation to create the protected area in June 2022, the Judge shockingly concluded that “The allegation that the state apparatuses such as police, army, wildlife rangers harassed the inhabitants of the promulgated area is not substantiated. The featured videos do not show whether they relate to establishment of GN No. 604 of 2022.”

The United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based Otterlo Business Company (OBC) – which runs hunting excursions for the country’s royal family and their guests – will reportedly control hunting in the area despite the company’s past involvement in several violent evictions of the Maasai, including in 2017, burning of homes, and the killing of thousands of rare animals in the area.

“When a government recklessly violates the rights of its citizens, and domestic courts offer little hope for redress, international scrutiny and action is paramount. The US and other donor governments who finance so-called conservation in Tanzania with tax-payer money must take immediate action to help secure justice or be held accountable for their complicity,” Mittal concluded.

Advocates for the impacted villagers have already filed a notice of intention to appeal the ruling.

Original Source: oaklandinstitute.org

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Kenya: Court halts flagship carbon offset project used by Meta, Netflix and British Airways over unlawfully acquiring community land without consent

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“Landmark Court Ruling Delivers Devastating Blow To Flagship Carbon Offset Project”, Friday, 31 January 2025.

A keenly-watched legal ruling in Kenya has delivered a huge blow to a flagship carbon offset project used by Meta, Netflix, British Airways and other multinational corporations, which has long been under fire from Indigenous activists. The ruling, in a case brought by 165 members of affected communities, affirms that two of the biggest conservancies set up by the controversial Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) have been established unconstitutionally and have no basis in law.

The court has also ordered that the heavily-armed NRT rangers – who have been accused of repeated, serious human rights abuses against the area’s Indigenous people – must leave these conservancies. One of the two conservancies involved in the case, known as Biliqo Bulesa, contributes about a fifth of the carbon credits involved in the highly contentious NRT project to sell carbon offsets to Western corporations. The ruling likely applies to around half the other conservancies involved in the carbon project too, as they are in the same legal position, even though they were not part of the lawsuit. This means that the whole project, from which NRT has made many millions of dollars already (the exact amount is not known as the organisation does not publish financial accounts), is now at risk.

The case was first filed in 2021, but judgment has only recently been delivered by the Isiolo Environment and Land Court. The legal issue at the heart of this case was identified in Survival International’s “Blood carbon” report, which also disputed the very basis of NRT’s carbon project: its claim that by controlling the activities of Indigenous pastoralists’ livestock, it increases the area’s vegetation and thus the amount of carbon stored in the soil.

The ruling is also the latest in a series of setbacks to the credibility of Verra, the main body used to verify carbon credit projects. Even though some of the participating conservancies in the NRT’s project lacked a clear legal basis and therefore could not ‘own’ or ‘transfer’ carbon credits to the NRT, the project was still validated and approved by Verra, and went through two verifications in their system. Complaints by Survival International prompted a review of the project in 2023, which also failed to address the problem.

Caroline Pearce, Director of Survival International, said today: “The judgement confirms what the communities have been saying for years – that they were not properly consulted about the creation of the conservancies, which have undermined their land rights. The NRT’s Western donors, like the EU, France and USAID, must now stop funding the organization, as they’ve been funding an operation which is now ruled to have been illegal…

The lawsuit accused NRT of establishing and running conservancies on unregistered community land, “without participation or involvement of the community,” including not obtaining free prior and informed consent before delineating and annexing community lands for private wildlife conservation.

The complaint reads, in part, “(NRT), with the help of the Rangers and the local administration, continue to use intimidation and coercion as well as threats upon the community leaders where the community leaders attempt to oppose any of their plans.” The case was brought by communities from two conservancies, Biliqo Bulesa Conservancy (which is in the NRT’s carbon project area and where 20% of the project’s carbon credits were generated) and Cherab Conservancy, which isn’t.

These two conservancies, the court has ruled, were illegally established. Permanent injunctions have been issued banning NRT and others from entering the area or operating their rangers or other agents there. The government has to get on with registering the community lands under the Community Land Act, and has to cancel the licences for NRT to operate in the respective areas. The NRT’s carbon offset project is reportedly the largest soil carbon capture project in the world.

Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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NGO WORK

France: CSOs criticise French government’s call for “massive regulatory pause” on EU legislation, incl. CSRD and CSDDD

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“Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive : France advocates for indefinite postponement, to the detriment of social and environemental justice,” 24 January 2025

According to a document made public by Politico and Mediapart, the French government, via the Minister of Economy Eric Lombard, intends to bring to Brussels an agenda of all-out deregulation which, in addition to suspending the application of the text “sine die”, would call into question entire sections of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. This irresponsible position risks precipitating the unravelling of a text necessary in the face of the climate and social crisis, a text that France nevertheless declares to have supported.

[…] The instrumentalization of the simplification of the law to weaken a directive is dangerous and unacceptable for European democracy.

According to the document published this morning in the press, France would request an indefinite postponement of the application of this directive, a significant increase in the application thresholds, or even the removal of the clause that would allow in the future to specifically regulate the activities of financial actors. These numerous modifications would lead to an exclusion of nearly 70% of the companies concerned, even though only 3,400 of the 32 million European companies (i.e. less than 0.1%) were covered under the previous thresholds according to the NGO SOMO.

In reality, as during the negotiation of the text, France is merely echoing the demands made by several employers’ organisations hostile to the duty of vigilance, including AFEP and Business Europe. In doing so, France is actively contributing to undoing the progress achieved by citizens in recent years.

For our organisations, human rights and environmental associations and trade unions, the position expressed by France is irresponsible and incomprehensible. Last week, more than 160 European associations and trade unions repeated their opposition to a questioning of European Sustainable Finance legislations.

We call on the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron and the Bayrou Government to reconsider this position as soon as possible and to reiterate France’s support for the European duty of vigilance, for the other texts of the Green Deal which are vital for people, the climate and biodiversity, and for respecting their implementation timelines.

Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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NGO WORK

New billion-dollar loans to fossil fuel companies from SEB, Nordea and Danske Bank.

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After thousands of protests, Swedbank has stopped lending to oil companies, as Handelsbanken has done before. But SEB, Danske Bank and Nordea continue to pump billions into the fossil fuel industry, despite the banks’ climate promises. This is shown by our and the Swedish Society for Nature’s New Review.

– The banks must stop financing the hunt for more fossil fuels, it completely undermines the climate transition. I don’t think Swedish bank customers appreciate their money were used in this way, says Jakob König, who heads the Fair Finance Guide.

60 new billions to fossil fuel companies

The New Report Banking on Thin Ice 3 shows that SEB, Nordea and Danske Bank, despite promises of climate responsibility, have given over SEK 60 billion in new loans to fossil fuel companies in the last two years. This is almost four times the Swedish government’s total climate and environmental budget for 2025. Almost SEK 22 billion has gone to companies drilling for new oil and gas discoveries. Expanding the extraction of fossil energy is contrary to the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.

“The banks have long responded to criticism by saying that they are helping the oil companies to adjust. But the companies are in the completely wrong direction by increasing their extraction instead of phasing it out. Now the banks must stop the loans just as Handelsbanken and Swedbank have done, says Karin Lexén, Secretary of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

Funding oil exploration in the Arctic and Africa

The Swedish-financed oil hunt is ongoing in several parts of the world. Eight billion SEK has gone to companies looking for more oil discoveries in the Norwegian Arctic, where nature is particularly sensitive and species such as seals, dolphins and whales are threatened by extraction. Last year, Norway quadrupled the number of extraction licenses sold in the Arctic compared to the year before. A of majority the licensees were by purchased Norway’s Aker BP, which is also the oil company that has been the largest loan from Swedish banks, a total of seven billion SEK from SEB and Nordea.

The banks have also lent SEK 5.7 billion to companies drilling for oil in African countries. Extraction there is becoming all risky as companies seek ever greater depths to find new deposits. In Namibia, oil drilling at depths of up to 3,000 meters. Other countries where the Swedish-financed companies are active are Congo, Ghana, Nigeria and Aquatorial Guinea.

Swedbank stops oil loans

The report, however, shows that Swedbank has stopped lending to oil companies, just as Handelsbanken did two years ago. This is likely a result of the thousands of customer protests that our previous reviews have given rise to, as well as the motions that have been put forward at the banks’ general meetings. Swedbank and Handelsbanken are now among a small group of banks in the world that have stopped lending to oil companies.

– It is gratifying that another major Swedish bank has become an international role model when it comes to sustainable financing. Now more must follow suit and take responsibility, because there are still large fossil fuel companies that receive loans to continue operations that exacerbate the climate crisis, says Karin Lexén.

Original: fairfinanceguide-se

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