Connect with us

NGO WORK

Travel Conglomerate Lindblad Expeditions Acquires Thomson Safaris Despite Allegations Against the US Firm of Land Theft & Abuses Against the Maasai

Published

1 year ago

on

On April 30, 2024, US-based luxury safari operator Wineland-Thomson Adventures, which runs Thomson Safaris in Tanzania, was acquired for approximately US$30 million(link is external) by the adventure travel conglomerate Lindblad Expeditions. The acquisition came just weeks after the release of Capitalizing on Chaos, a report by the Oakland Institute that documents the ongoing resistance of Maasai communities to Thomson Safaris for alleged land theft and human rights abuses committed by the company’s agents in Tanzania. Announcing the deal, Sven-Olof Lindblad, CEO of Lindblad Expeditions, emphasized(link is external) the importance of being “stewards of the Wineland-Thomson brands and honoring the legacy of its founders.”

“The legacy Lindblad will continue is one of dispossession, violence, and greed. For years, Maasai villagers have reported suffering at the hands of Thomson Safaris. Despite the well-known harms caused by safari-tourism in Tanzania, Lindblad now seeks to further profit from the industry,” said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute.

Since 2006, the Mondorosi, Sukenya, and Soitsambu villages have been ensnared in a prolonged struggle against the company for the return of 10,000 acres of their land. In several court filings, local communities have accused Thomson Safaris of using its agents to beat and repress them while preventing their access to lands critical for grazing cattle. This struggle takes place in a context where the Tanzanian government announced a devastating new plan in January to forcibly evict 100,000 Maasai from the nearby Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Across the country, Tanzanian paramilitary wildlife rangers are responsible for killings, murders, torture, as well as massive cattle seizures to pressure the Maasai and other Indigenous communities to leave their ancestral land in order to expand the tourism industry.

Despite the international condemnation of the Tanzanian government’s land grabs and human rights abuses, Lindblad plans to(link is external) “further accelerate the growth of the Wineland-Thomson offerings and capitalize on the growing demand” for safaris. The deal and the firm’s expansion plans illustrate the growing corporatization of safari tourism in the name of conservation, which threatens local communities across Africa. Lindblad Expeditions is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange and its shareholders include major asset management firms such as Ariel Investments, Fidelity, Blackrock, and Vanguard Group. In 2023, the firm reported(link is external) over US$569 million in revenue.

Lindblad Expeditions advertises itself(link is external) as a “leader in responsible travel and sustainability” and its subsidiary that it acquired Thomson Safaris through – Natural Habitat Adventures (Nat Hab) – is a self-proclaimed “world leader in conservation travel.”(link is external) Both companies have high-profile partnerships with National Geographic and WWF. Nat Hab boasts that(link is external) “when you travel with Nat Hab and WWF, you become an integral force for change in addressing the planet’s most pressing conservation challenges.”

However, WWF has been widely criticized for advancing a “fortress conservation” model1 and for turning a blind eye(link is external) to multiple cases of torture, rape, and murder of local communities committed by rangers in its conservation projects across several countries.2

Lindblad Expeditions claims(link is external) to be 100 percent carbon neutral as it “offsets” its emissions through South Pole – a firm which has also been embroiled in numerous scandals,3 most notably regarding its flagship Kariba REDD+ project in Zimbabwe.

“The growing involvement of large profit-driven conglomerates in the tourism sector is alarming for local communities whose livelihoods are jeopardized by the loss of their ancestral lands. If Lindblad and Nat Hab are truly as committed to responsible travel and sustainability as they advertise, they must immediately address the Maasai communities’ demand for the return of their land from Thomson Safaris,” concluded Mittal.

###

  1. Former U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, John Knox, said at the October 26, 2021 Congressional hearing that there’s enough evidence supporting the accusation that WWF had engaged in “fortress conservation.” Abulu, L. and Sutherland, L. “WWF distances itself from rights abuses at U.S. congressional hearing.” Mongabay, November 2, 2021. https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/wwf-distances-itself-from-rights-abuses-at-u-s-congressional-hearing/(link is external).
  2. Nepal, Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo and India. A 2020 independent review(link is external) commissioned by WWF revealed that the agency knew for years that it was funding alleged human rights abusers but repeatedly failed to take timely action(link is external).The investigation found no evidence that WWF staff directed, participated in, or encouraged any abuses. During a subsequent US Congressional hearing in 2021(link is external), WWF came under fire for failing to meet its human rights obligations.
  3. An investigation by Follow the Money in 2023(link is external) revealed that over 60 percent of the carbon credits sold from the project by South Pole were fictious given they vastly overestimated the amount of deforestation prevented by the project. The failures of the Kariba project are indicative of serious legitimacy questions plaguing the broader carbon offset market. A 2023 investigation(link is external) found that over 90 percent of credits certified by Verra – the industry leading certification agency used by South Pole – were “phantom credits” that did not represent actual carbon reductions. Blake, H. “The Great Cash-for-Carbon Hustle.” The New Yorker, October 16, 2023. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/23/the-great-cash-for-carbon-hustle(link is external); Elgin, B., Marsh, A., and M. Haldevang. “Faulty Credits Tarnish Billion-Dollar Carbon Offset Seller.” Bloomberg, March 24, 2023. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-03-24/carbon-offset-seller-s-forest-protection-projects-questioned?leadSource=uverify%20wall(link is external).; Greenfield, P. and N. Chingono. “‘We don’t know where the money is going’: the ‘carbon cowboys’ making millions from credit schemes.” The Guardian, March 15, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/15/money-carbon-credits-zimbabwe-conservation-aoe(link is external).  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/23/the-great-cash-for-carbon-hustle(link is external); “BP and Spotify bought carbon credits at risk of link to forced Uyghur labour in China.” The Guardian, November 12, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/13/carbon-credits-at-risk-of-link-to-uyghur-forced-labour-bought-by-bp-and-spotify(link is external)

Original Source: oaklandinstitute.org

Related posts:

US Luxury Safari Operator Tightens Stranglehold Over Maasai Land in Tanzania Call to Sever Ties with Tanzanian Government Over Latest Human Rights Abuses Against the Maasai Justice Denied: East African Court of Justice Grants Tanzanian Government Impunity to Trample Human Rights of the Maasai Worldwide Condemnation Over Violence against the Maasai by Tanzania Security Forces Tanzanian Government’s Sustained Campaign Against the Maasai in Loliondo and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

NGO WORK

Climate wash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights

Published

15 hours ago

on

November 13, 2025

By

Climate wash: 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.

This report 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.

Read full report: Climatewash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights

Source: The Oakland Institute

Related posts:

Under Guise of Climate Action, the World Bank Launches Fresh Offensive on Land Rights 30 civil society organizations have written to the World Bank Group demanding to publicly disclose the Africa Energy Approach paper. World Bank’s new scheme to privatize land in the developing world exposed World Bank is backing dozens of new coal projects, despite climate pledges Communities Under Siege: New Report Reveals World Bank Failures in Safeguard Compliance and Human Rights Oversight in Tanzania
Continue Reading

NGO WORK

Africa’s Land Is Not Empty: New Report Debunks the Myth of “Unused Land” and Calls for a Just Future for the Continent’s Farmland

Published

15 hours ago

on

November 13, 2025

By

A new report challenges one of the most persistent and harmful myths shaping Africa’s development agenda — the idea that the continent holds vast expanses of “unused” or “underutilised” land waiting to be transformed into industrial farms or carbon markets.

Titled Land Availability and Land-Use Changes in Africa (2025), the study exposes how this colonial-era narrative continues to justify large-scale land acquisitions, displacements, and ecological destruction in the name of progress.

Drawing on extensive literature reviews, satellite data, and interviews with farmers in Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, the report systematically dismantles five false assumptions that underpin the “land abundance” narrative:

  1. That Africa has vast quantities of unused arable land available for cultivation

  2. That modern technology can solve Africa’s food crisis

  3. That smallholder farmers are unproductive and incapable of feeding the continent

  4. That markets and higher yields automatically improve food access and nutrition

  5. That industrial agriculture will generate millions of decent jobs

Each of these claims, the report finds, is deeply flawed. Much of the land labelled as “vacant” is, in reality, used for grazing, shifting cultivation, foraging, or sacred and ecological purposes. These multifunctional landscapes sustain millions of people and are far from empty.

The study also shows that Africa’s food systems are already dominated by small-scale farmers, who produce up to 80% of the continent’s food on 80% of its farmland. Rather than being inefficient, their agroecological practices are more resilient, locally adapted, and socially rooted than the industrial models promoted by external donors and corporations.

Meanwhile, the promise that industrial agriculture will lift millions out of poverty has not materialised. Mechanisation and land consolidation have displaced labour, while dependency on imported seeds and fertilisers has trapped farmers in cycles of debt and dependency.

A Continent Under Pressure

Beyond these myths, the report reveals a growing land squeeze as multiple global agendas compete for Africa’s territory: the expansion of mining for critical minerals, large-scale carbon-offset schemes, deforestation for timber and commodities, rapid urbanisation, and population growth.

Between 2010 and 2020, Africa lost more than 3.9 million hectares of forest annually — the highest deforestation rate in the world. Grasslands, vital carbon sinks and grazing ecosystems, are disappearing at similar speed.

Powerful actors — from African governments and Gulf states to Chinese investors, multinational agribusinesses, and climate-finance institutions — are driving this race for land through opaque deals that sideline local communities and ignore customary tenure rights.

A Call for a New Vision

The report calls for a radical shift away from high-tech, market-driven, land-intensive models toward people-centred, ecologically grounded alternatives. Its key policy recommendations include:

  • Promoting agroecology as a pathway for food sovereignty, ecological regeneration, and rural livelihoods.

  • Reducing pressure on land by improving agroecological productivity, cutting food waste, and prioritising equitable distribution.

  • Rejecting carbon market schemes that commodify land and displace communities.

  • Legally recognising customary land rights, particularly for women and Indigenous peoples.

  • Upholding the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) for all land-based investments.

This report makes it clear: Africa’s land is not “empty” — it is lived on, worked on, and cared for. The future of African land must not be dictated by global capital or outdated development theories, but shaped by the people who depend on it.

Download the Report

Read the full report Land Availability and Land-Use Changes in Africa (2025) to explore the evidence and policy recommendations in detail.

Source: Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)

Related posts:

Africa Climate Summit 2023 Set to Surrender the Continent to Green Colonialism Financial Institutions from Africa have made a monumental commitment of $100 billion to Africa’s green industrialization, a decision of immense significance that has the potential to shape Africa’s future. Africa adopts the Africa Climate Innovation Compact (ACIC) Declaration to drive the continent towards innovative climate solutions. One in three people sleeps on an empty stomach – World Bank Report. Transforming Africa’s livestock sector is key to food security-Report
Continue Reading

NGO WORK

Discover How Foreign Interests and Resource Extraction Continue to Drive Congo’s Crisis

Published

2 days ago

on

November 12, 2025

By

Whereas Donald Trump hailed the “peace” agreement between Rwanda and DRC as marking the end of a deadly three-decade war, a new report from the Oakland Institute, Shafted: The Scramble for Critical Minerals in the DRC, exposes it as the latest US maneuver to control Congolese critical minerals.

Under the Guise of Peace

After three decades of deadly wars and atrocities, the June 2025 “peace” deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) lays bare the United States’ role in entrenching the extraction of minerals under the guise of diplomacy. For decades, US backing of Rwanda and Uganda has fueled the violence, which has ripped millions of Congolese lives apart while enabling the looting of the country’s mineral wealth. Today, Washington presents itself as a broker of peace, yet its longstanding support for Rwanda made it possible for M23 to seize territory, capture key mining sites, and forced Kinshasa to the negotiation table with hands tied behind its back. By legitimizing Rwanda’s territorial advances, the US-brokered agreement effectively rewards aggression while sidelining accountability, justice for victims, and the sovereignty of the Congolese people.

The incorporation of “formalized” mineral supply chains from eastern DRC to Rwanda exposes the pact’s true aim: Securing access to and control over minerals under the guise of diplomacy and “regional integration.” Framed as peacemaking, this is part of United States’ broader geopolitical struggle with China for control over critical resources. Far from fostering peace – over a thousand civilians have been killed since the deal was signed while parallel negotiations with Rwanda’s rebel force have collapsed – this arrangement risks deepening Congo’s subjugation. Striking deals with the Trump administration and US firms, the DRC government is surrendering to a new era of exploitation while the raging war continues, driving the unbearable suffering of the Congolese people.

Introduction

The conflict in eastern DRC, which dates back three decades to the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and subsequent Congo Wars, has claimed over six million lives, displaced millions more, and inflicted widespread suffering. Since late 2021, Rwanda and its proxy militia, M23, have stormed through mineral-rich lands and regional capitals, inflicting brutal violence and triggering mass displacement. While billions of dollars in natural resources are extracted from the area, Congolese communities toil in extreme poverty.

On June 27, 2025, a “peace” agreement was signed between Rwanda and the DRC under the auspices of the Trump administration, with diplomatic assistance from Qatar.1 The deal included pledges to respect the territorial integrity of both countries, to promote peaceful relations through the disarmament of armed groups, the return of refugees, and the creation of a joint security mechanism. A key clause commits the countries to launch a regional economic integration framework that would entail “mutually beneficial partnerships and investment opportunities,” specifically for the extraction of the DRC’s mineral wealth by US private interests.

Placing the deal in a historical perspective – after three decades of conflict and over seven decades of US chess game around Congolese minerals – this report examines its implications for the Congolese people as well as the interests involved in the plunder of the country’s resources.

The report begins by retracing 30 years of war, fueled by the looting of Congo’s mineral wealth and devastating for the people of eastern DRC. It then examines how US policy in Central Africa, from the Cold War to the present, has been shaped by its interest in Congolese minerals, sustained alliances with Rwanda and Uganda, and a consistent pattern of overlooking atrocities in support of these allies.

The report then analyses the implications of the regional economic integration aspect of the deal, which aims to link mineral supply chains in the DRC and Rwanda with US investors. The last sections examine the prospect for lasting peace and security resulting from the deal and the impact of growing involvement of US private actors in DRC and Rwanda.

Original Source: Oakland Institute

Related posts:

Failed US-Brokered “Peace” Deal Was Never About Peace in DRC Profit off Peace? Meet the Corporations Poised to Benefit from the DRC Peace Deal DR Congo: RIAO-RDC calls for the immediate release of four leaders from the community of Mwingi who were arrested after a peaceful protest against the oil palm plantation company PHC DR Congo oil palm company bankrolled by development banks unleashes wave of violence against villagers after peaceful protests Operations of civil society organizations will continue to be stifled until government understands their work – New Book.
Continue Reading

Resource Center

Legal Framework

READ BY CATEGORY

Facebook

Newsletter

Subscribe to Witness Radio's newsletter



Trending

Subscribe to Witness Radio's newsletter