Banished from the lands his people have roamed for generations, Songoyo, like many Maasai, has had to surrender his livestock—and a traditional way of life: https://lnkd.in/edxbHrZ7
The world’s most powerful people and interests are aligned against a pastoral people who have lived in northern Tanzania for 400 years, Stephanie McCrummen reports. At stake: the Serengeti’s grassy plains, acacia woodlands, rivers, lakes, snowcapped mountains, salt flats, forests, and wildlife.
Global leaders want what they consider undeveloped land for conservation goals. Corporations want undisturbed forests to offset pollution. Western conservation groups exert great influence. And a booming safari industry sells an old, destructive myth of the Serengeti as a primordial wilderness—with the Maasai as cultural relics obstructing a perfect view.
“The reality is that the Maasai have been stewards, integral to creating that very ecosystem,” McCrummen writes. “The same can be said of Indigenous groups around the world, to whom conservation often feels like a land grab. In the past two decades, more than a quarter million Indigenous people have been evicted to make way for ecotourism, carbon-offset schemes, and other activities that fall under the banner of conservation. That figure is expected to soar.”
Current pressures are unlike any the Maasai have experienced, including a government plan to resettle 100,000 people to “modern houses” elsewhere in the country. In another area bordering Serengeti National Park, government security forces have annexed 580 square miles of prime grazing land to create an exclusive game reserve for the Dubai royal family—calling it necessary for conservation. Maasai compounds were burned; rangers seized cattle by the tens of thousands.
“And more was coming,” McCrummen writes at the link in our bio. New maps indicated that further tracts—including a sacred site that the Maasai call the Mountain of God—could soon be off-limits. “This is 80 percent of our land,” a Maasai elder told her. “This will finish us.”
For our May cover story, McCrummen reports on how one Maasai man lost everything—and what happened after he made a last-ditch attempt at survival.
Read more: https://lnkd.in/edxbHrZ7
📸: Nichole Sobecki
Thanks for shining a light on our conservation efforts! At Rotorua Canopy Tours, we believe every piece of the ecosystem matters, and it’s rewarding to see native bugs like our beetles thriving thanks to the care and effort we put into pest control and forest restoration. Paul Button summed it perfectly—seeing this kind of response in the ecosystem makes all the hard work worth it! It’s a reminder that even the smallest creatures play a massive role in keeping the Okoheriki forest healthy and vibrant.