Dear friends, Within hours, Tanzania's President Kikwete could start evicting tens of thousands of the Maasai from our land so hunters can come and kill leopards and lions. Last time Avaaz raised the alarm, the President shelved the plan. Global pressure can stop him again. Click to help us urgently:
We are elders of the Maasai from Tanzania, one of Africa’s
oldest tribes. The government has just announced that it plans to kick
thousands of our families off our lands so that wealthy tourists can use them
to shoot lions and leopards. The evictions are to begin immediately.
Last year, when word first leaked about this plan, almost one million Avaaz
members rallied to our aid. Your attention and the storm it created forced the
government to deny the plan, and set them back months. But the President has
waited for international attention to die down, and now he’s revived his plan
to take our land. We need your help again, urgently.
President Kikwete may not care about us, but he has shown he’ll respond to
global media and public pressure -- to all of you! We may only have hours. Please
stand with us to protect our land, our people and our world’s most majestic
animals, and tell everyone before it is too late. This is our last hope:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_the_maasai_2014_mobtst/?bvjguib&v=48695
Our people have lived off the land in Tanzania and Kenya for centuries. Our
communities respect our fellow animals and protect and preserve the delicate
ecosystem. But the government has for years sought to profit by giving rich
princes and kings from the Middle East access to our land to kill. In 2009, when
they tried to clear our land to make way for these hunting sprees, we resisted,
and hundreds of us were arrested and beaten. Last year, rich princes shot at
birds in trees from helicopters. This killing goes against everything in our
culture.
Now the government has announced it will clear a huge swath of our land in
Loliondo to make way for what it claims will be a wildlife corridor, but many
suspect it’s just a ruse to give a foreign hunting corporation and the rich
tourists it caters to easier access to shoot at majestic animals. The
government claims this new arrangement is some sort of accommodation, but its
effect on our people’s way of life will be disastrous. There are thousands of
us who could have our lives uprooted, losing our homes, the land on which our
animals graze, or both.
President Kikwete knows this deal would be controversial with Tanzania’s
tourists -- a critical source of national income -- and does not want a big PR
disaster. If we can urgently generate even more global outrage than we did
before, and get the media writing about it, we know it can make him think
twice. Stand with us now to call on Kikwete to stop the sell off:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_the_maasai_2014_mobtst/?bvjguib&v=48695
This land grab could spell the end for the Maasai in this part of Tanzania and
many of our community have said they would rather die than be forced from their
homes. On behalf of our people and the animals who graze in these lands, please
stand with us to change the mind of our President.
With hope and determination,
The Maasai elders of Ngorongoro District
SOURCES
The Guardian: Tanzania accused of backtracking over sale of Masai’s ancestral
land
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/16/tanzania-government-accused-serengeti-sale-maasai-lands
The Guardian: Maasai fury as plan to lure Arabian Gulf tourists threatens their
ancestral land
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/30/maasai-game-hunting-tanzania
allAfrica: Land Grab Could Spell 'The End of the Maasai'
http://allafrica.com/stories/201303290873.html
IPP Media: Maasai villagers frustrate efforts to vacate for Ortelo
http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/?l=52669
The Guardian: Tanzania denies plan to evict Maasai for royal hunting ground
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/15/tanzania-evict-maasai-uae-royals
The Guardian: “Tourism is a curse to us”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/06/masai-tribesman-tanzania-tourism
New Internationalist Magazine: “Hunted down”
http://www.newint.org/columns/currents/2009/12/01/tanzania/
Society for Threatened People: Briefing on the eviction of the Loliondo Maasai
http://lib.ohchr.org/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/session12/TZ/STP-SocietyThreatenedPeople-eng.pdf
FEMACT: Report by 16 human rights investigators & media on violence in
Loliondo
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/58956/print