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US Luxury Safari Operator Tightens Stranglehold Over Maasai Land in Tanzania

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Oakland, CA – Boston-based Thomson Safaris is exploiting the Tanzanian government’s brutal repression of land defenders to legitimize control over Maasai land in the Loliondo Division of the Ngorongoro District. In June 2022, the government carried out land demarcation to create a Game Reserve in Loliondo, which saw security forces fire live ammunition on the Maasai, severely wounding dozens and displacing thousands. In the immediate aftermath of these events, Thomson Safaris carried out a resurvey of a long-contested land claim they have in the same area. Communities say they were excluded from the resurvey process and alleged in a November 2023 court filing that they have since suffered abuse by the company’s agents enforcing the new boundaries.

“Over the past two years, the Tanzanian government has repeatedly shown it will aid and abet foreign corporations operating luxury safaris at the expense of the Maasai communities who have stewarded these lands for generations. While labeling itself as a sustainable tourism operator, the American firm is getting away with capitalizing on this repression,” said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute.

Capitalizing on Chaos: Thomson Safaris Tightens Its Stranglehold Over Indigenous Lands in Tanzania exposes how in the aftermath of the resurvey, the strict enforcement of the new boundaries has aggravated daily hardships for the villagers who report incidents of violence – allegedly committed by Thomson Safaris’ guides – against pastoralists and their children. One villager cited in the report alleges, “My boy was taking care of the livestock when he was caught by a Thomson Safaris’ guide and beaten for no reason. He suffered injuries on his body…Our rights have been violated by an intruder in our ancestors’ land.”

As documented in the Oakland Institute’s 2018 report, Losing the Serengeti, since 2006, the Mondorosi, Sukenya, and Soitsambu villages have been ensnared in a prolonged struggle for the return of their lands against the company. Local communities seek to reclaim 10,000 acres of land in what is known to them as the Sukenya farm, originally transferred forty years ago without their Free, Prior, and Informed Consent and vital to their pastoral livelihoods. For over a decade, communities have pursued legal action for the full return of their land in the High Court of Tanzania and Court of Appeal, but to no avail.

On June 8, 2022, the Tanzanian government initiated the illegal demarcation of over 370,000 acres of land in Loliondo Division to create a Game Reserve. The exercise led to widespread violence by state security forces, with dozens of community leaders and villagers arbitrarily arrested while others were forced into hiding. According to local communities, Thomson Safaris took advantage of this increasing state violence against the Maasai and the ensuing chaos to consolidate its claim to the land.

The strict enforcement of the Sukenya farm’s boundaries has reportedly forced villagers to walk hours to access essential medical services and schools. Communities have also lost access to prime grazing land, which has been particularly catastrophic in the context of the drought that ravaged the Horn of Africa between 2020 and 2023. Thomson Safaris is now allegedly lobbying the Tanzanian government to change the land use in the surrounding area exclusively for tourism – a move that would further prohibit Maasai pastoralists’ livestock from accessing vital water and grazing land.

In response to an inquiry by the Oakland Institute, Thomson Safaris’ attorneys in Tanzania denied the allegations about the resurvey and its impact on villagers. While they called the claims “baseless,” the firm failed to provide any evidence that the resurvey took place with full community participation. Despite the ongoing land dispute and allegations of violence made in court by villagers, the company remains the preferred Tanzania operator for high-profile universities, museums, and conservation groups.

Alongside Capitalizing on Chaos, the Institute released Pulling Back the Curtain: How the US Drives Tanzania’s War on the Indigenous. The brief reveals how Tanzania’s largest bilateral donor has been instrumental in designing the country’s aggressive strategy to expand the tourism industry at the expense of Indigenous communities. It details how the US is behind a number of policy changes and measures that have led to the expansion of so-called protected areas and favored private operators, including fiscal measures to their benefit. USAID has for instance prepared development plans for Ruaha National Park – currently being implemented by the World Bank – that will result in the eviction of tens of thousands of people. It has also enabled the creation of new Game Reserves, which will seize over a million hectares of Maasai land and evict thousands of people.

“The fingerprints of the US government are all over the harmful policies and projects to expand protected areas, rendering it complicit in the forced evictions of the Maasai and other local communities across the country. It has turned a blind eye to the egregious human rights abuses of the government so that the rich Americans can keep going on upscale safaris and operators like Thomson Safaris keep raking in massive profits,” concluded Mittal.

Indigenous communities are not enduring hardships solely because of the wrongdoings of the Tanzanian government. The US government and private operators like Thomson Safaris all bear their share of responsibility and must be held accountable for it.

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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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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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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