By ERA ENVIRONNEMENT
The Maasai residents from Northern Tanzania in Ngorongo District, are calling people through various campaigns to support their willing to not being displaced from their ancestral lands.
“1,500 square kilometers of land to lease”
According to the Indigenous People Rights International, a legally registered, non-profit global Indigenous People organization, the government of Tanzania plans to evict this year Maasai villagers in Ngorongoro District, based in the Arusha Region, in the east of the Serengeti National Park . Indeed, to the NGO, the Tanzanian government is planning to lease 1,500 square kilometers of land to the Dubai royal families through the Otterlo Business Corporation owned by this family.
“They will create a wildlife corridor for trophy hunting and elite tourism”, explains Mongabay, the nonprofit environmental science and conservation news platform in a recent article which recalls that the Tanzanian government is not allowed to displace the Maasai pastoralists from their lands.Mongabay explains that a law has been passed by the East African Court of Justice in 2018 to protect the right of the pastoralists. But the risk of the eviction of the Maasai pastoralists is actually an old Tanzanian government project . In 1992, Tanzanian government signed a deal with the United Arab Emirates to lease these ancestral lands.
The campaigns
In the ongoing Avaaz campaign , it mentions that the Tanzanian government stopped its action to displace the Maasai population in Arusha region before the venue of the new president, Samia Suluhu Hassan. In a letter signed by 4,747 Individuals from United States (1612 signatories), United Kingdom (995 signatories), Germany (551 signatories), Netherlands (265 signatories), and Canada (240 signatories), the People Rights International organization calls the Tanzanian government to respect the 1999 Village Land Act , as well as to the international human rights obligations and commitments.
The NGO recalls in the letter that villages in Ngorongoro have the right to stay in their land which they have collectively managed and conserved for decades. Displacing the 70000 Maasai pastoralists with their 200 000 livestock will make them homeless and lose their cultural identity, dignity and rights, emphasized the NGO.
This NGO calls the Tanzanian government to ensure that they won’t be further attempts of land grabbing and forced evictions. It urges the Tanzanian Government to guarantee the respect and protection of the right to freedom of expressions without any attempt to stop civil society organizations and journalists.
