Maasai people booted off ancestral land in name of conservation

Two presidential commissions have recommended the mass eviction of Maasai people from some of East Africa’s most iconic conservation areas and tourist destinations. Advocacy group Survival International says this is an example of colonialist “fortress conservation”.

Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan set up the commissions following previous evictions of Maasai pastoralists from parts of the world famous Serengeti ecosystem, and large protests in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in 2024.

Now, despite a global outcry at the earlier evictions, the two Commissions have:

• Backed the previous evictions and called for them to continue, including in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Ngorongoro and neighbouring Lake Natron.
• Described the historic Maasai presence in the area as an “environmental pressure” that needs reducing.
• Threatened local NGOs that support the Maasai, accusing them of “spreading misinformation or propaganda” because they “conflict with government interests”.
• Called for the “relocation” of all “non-conservation activities” [in other words, Maasai occupancy of the land] to outside the conservation areas.
• Called for removal of the existing recognition of the Maasai people’s right to live in the Ngorongoro area.

An anonymous Maasai spokesperson said today:

We are blamed for environmental degradation while the unchecked expansion of tourism is ignored. Forced relocation, disguised as policy, has deprived our people of basic rights and dignity.

We reject any continuation of these measures and condemn the Commission’s failure to reflect the voices, realities, and rights of our people.

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The authorities maintain that these are “voluntary relocations.” However, the Maasai have overwhelmingly said no to moving.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. When it was established, the ancestral right of the Maasai to live there with their cattle was explicitly acknowledged.

But UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has backed the so-called “voluntary relocations”, and UNESCO endorses the “fortress conservation” model that underpins Tanzania’s approach.

Survival International director Caroline Pearce said today:

These commissions were a sham, a gimmick designed to give Tanzania’s violent persecution of the Maasai a veneer of respectability. It was widely predicted that they’d back further evictions: the whole saga just confirms that colonial-style fortress conservation is alive and well in Tanzania today, and enthusiastically endorsed by UNESCO.

These recommendations give the green light to more evictions, in Ngorongoro and beyond. And while the Maasai are robbed of their lands and livelihood, the government, tour operators and so-called conservationists will enrich themselves from a landscape emptied of its original owners.

Featured image via the Canary