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URGENT ALERT: Tanzanian Government Resorts to Cattle Seizures to Further Restrict Livelihoods of Maasai Pastoralists

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3 years ago

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On December 1, 2022, we exposed how the Tanzanian government has made harsh cuts in vital public services, including health services and imposed strict livelihood restrictions, to force the Maasai out of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA). Resettlement plans for the NCA residents are critically flawed and communities continue to courageously speak out against forced evictions. On January 16, 2023, The Guardian echoed this struggle in an article, “‘It’s becoming a war zone’: Tanzania’s Maasai speak out on ‘forced’ removals,”(link is external) that captured the harsh situation on the ground.

Today, we are sharing a concerning update as the government of Tanzania is further escalating the pressure on the Maasai by seizing their cattle. Once captured, the cattle are auctioned off and exported from the area, unless the owners manage to get it back by paying a ransom to the authorities.

Livestock is central to the Maasai culture and livelihoods. Losing cattle is therefore catastrophic for them. With this new tactic, the government’s goal is clearly to drive them away from their ancestral lands. This is happening in Loliondo — in and adjacent to the “Pololeti Game Reserve” — which was created during the government’s violent demarcation exercise in June 2022 and dedicated for trophy hunting by the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based Otterlo Business Company (OBC). These seizures are now increasingly being practiced near other “protected” areas of the country. This update provides additional evidence of the Tanzanian government’s brutal campaign against the pastoralists.

In November and December 2022 alone, several massive seizures were carried out, including:

Loliondo, Ngorongoro District

  • November 26, 2022 — 60 cows of Sarkay Tiiyee from Malambo were seized at a water point, outside the illegally demarcated “Pololeti Game Reserve” area.
  • November 27, 2022 — Also in Malambo, 167 goats belonging to Kimani Taretoy Tiiyee were seized. The rangers demanded TSh 60,000 per goat and slaughtered 27 of them.
  • December 14, 2022 — An estimated 1,772 cattle belonging to the pastoralists of Ngorongoro District were sold at a public auction by court order on the grounds that they had no owners and were unclaimed property. The cattle owners were reportedly threatened with trespassing and robbery if they tried to reclaim their cattle.
  • December 17, 2022 — 600 sheep belonging to Malee Risando Lekitony were seized next to his boma. He had to pay TSh 2 million to get his sheep back.
  • December 19, 2022 — Over 300 cows belonging to four families were seized at Oloosek, Ololosokwan — an area within the newly created “Pololeti Game Reserve” in Loliondo. The demand to release the cattle was TSh 100,000 per head — a very high amount for the pastoralists. Given the fear of losing their cattle, the fine was eventually paid and cattle returned.
  • December 22, 2022 — Approximately 400 cows from Arash, belonging to herders from Sangok and Losekenja were seized in the “Pololeti Game Reserve.” On Christmas Eve, the livestock owners tried to inquire about the procedure to get the cattle back and found that all the cows had been sold.

Note: In June 2022, following the violent government demarcation exercise in Loliondo, we previously reported that an elderly man, Mbirias Oleng’iyo, went missing. In the latest update, Mr. Oleng’iyo has still not been found and his family continues to search for him. It is alleged that he was arrested by the police.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area

  • Continued drought and restrictions on grazing areas cattle can access within the NCA have caused the deaths of hundreds of cattle, driving pastoralists further into poverty.

Tarangire National Park

  • December 17-24, 2022 — an estimated 3,083 cattle belonging to herders living in Simanjiro District in Manyara Region were seized for allegedly entering Tarangire National Park and sold at an auction. A media story on the event is available here.(link is external) Sources on the ground report the cattle were not in the park when they were seized.

Ruaha National Park

The government’s use of cattle seizures to force pastoralists into poverty and drive them from their lands as seen in Loliondo is now being repeated in areas surrounding and within the Ruaha National Park. For instance:

  • November 22, 2022 — Ruaha National Park conservation rangers seized 172 cattle in Mbarali District, Mbeya Region, belonging to Kideka Dabda. Even though Mr. Dabda showed up and the Mbarali District Court issued an injunction stating that the cattle should not be auctioned off, the cattle were still sold.
  • Just a few days later on November 25, 2022, the Minister of Lands, Dr. Angelina Mabula, at a public rally in Ubaruku in the Mbarali District, announced that villagers in 48 villages and townships in the district “encroaching” the Ruaha National Park must leave the park immediately.
  • December 2, 2022 — 93 cattle from Madundasi Village (located south of Ruaha National Park) were auctioned off with the permission of the Mbarali District Court.

Due to the ongoing violation of human rights, Tanzania CSOs released a statement(link is external) on December 20, 2022, condemning the cattle seizures. Local CSOs are calling for an immediate end to “military exercises carried out by the conservation rangers to unjustly arrest the herders and confiscate their livestock because those actions perpetuate poverty and cause suffering for innocent citizens.” CSOs are asking for the government to compensate the pastoralists “whose livestock have been auctioned fraudulently, as the livestock is the primary support for the economy and the family’s food security.”

Original Source: Oakland Institute

Related posts:

URGENT ALERT – Heavy Police Presence in Loliondo as Threats of Mass Evictions of the Maasai Intensify Tanzanian Government’s Sustained Campaign Against the Maasai in Loliondo and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area 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 Justice Denied: East African Court of Justice Grants Tanzanian Government Impunity to Trample Human Rights of the Maasai

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

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8 hours ago

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November 13, 2025

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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

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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

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8 hours ago

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November 13, 2025

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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)

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

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1 day ago

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November 12, 2025

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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

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