Bad News from Tanzania

[Lisbeth]

Maasai banned from their land in favour of an Arabian hunting company


It is suggested that the 'Ortello Business Corporation' want a new hunting block as they have killed most of the wildlife on their old one. Photo courtesy of Paul Goldstein

April 2013. The Loliondo Game Controlled Area (LGCA), one of Tanzania's most well-known Maasai community concessions and wildlife destinations is in the spotlight as local stakeholders and outside financial interests clash over its natural resources.

Foreign hunting company at the centre of the row
These tensions are not new, and given the location of Loliondo and the bounty of wildlife and grazing it carries, such tussles over competing land-use options are not surprising - what is surprising though is the manner in which the Tanzanian government has chosen to deal with the crisis. By choosing to side with a notorious foreign hunting company over a local Maasai community, they have shown a blatant disregard for traditional land-use rights and exposed the contradictions in their stated conservation goals.

Adjacent to the Serengeti
Lying adjacent to the north-eastern portion of the Serengeti National Park, the significant array of wildlife found in this 4000sq kms concession has over the last two decades attracted increasing numbers of hunters and ecotourists. The current dispute involves a United Arab Emirates (UAE) based hunting company called Ortello Business Corporation (OBC) with strong links to the royal family and military leaders of this tiny Arab state - they want their own private hunting grounds within Loliondo.

Maasai not consulted
But tourism is a very recent arrival to these verdant ancestral lands of the Maasai who have been living and grazing cattle here for the past 200 years or so. More recently, this historical tenure was formalized in a 1959 compensatory agreement when the Maasai were moved here for permanent settlement after being banished from the Serengeti when it was declared a national park. Back in 1993 when OBC first muscled its way into Loliondo, Tanzania had just emerged from decades of heavy socialism that brought state control to every aspect of life. Quick to take advantage of the transition, the Arabs approached the then government and in the negotiations the Maasai were never consulted in any way over the granting of a long term lease. By all accounts this came as a Presidential decree offering extremely favourable terms to the new leaseholder.

Allegations of illegal and unethical hunting practices
Without consent or any form of buy-in from the traditional landowners, this was always going to be an acrimonious relationship. And the Arabs case has not being helped by allegations of illegal and unethical hunting practices, including the use of aircraft and machine-guns as well as baiting wildlife from the nearby Serengeti. Other accusations against them include the theft of wildlife from the concession, acts of intimidation and threats and bribes paid to silence people from within the community and government. This has all led to numerous public clashes between community residents and OBC and the authorities, who the Maasai accuse of being in cohorts with each other.

New hunting block
While the official government line for dealing with the disputes at this moment revolves around securing wildlife corridors in Loliondo, the inside view is that the Arabs are looking for new and better hunting grounds as they have pretty much blighted what they had. And it would seem they may just get their way again. In a recent announcement, the Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism proposed that Loliondo be split into two sections - 2 500sqkms for the Maasai and a 1 500sqkm ‘wildlife corridor' to be reclaimed as the Minister put it "for the benefit of the nation." With this move however, government has in essence served the Maasai with an eviction order by expropriating almost one-third of their ancestral land, and in the process made provision for the Arabs to get a new lease on an exclusive hunting bloc running alongside the Serengeti.

The issue here is not about refuting the Minister's wish to protect the country's wildlife - all would agree this is imperative. Rather, it's about the continuation of policies that entrench historical land injustices and a mindset that cannot accept the ownership, empowerment and conservation credentials of traditional communities living on the edges of Africa's protected areas. The marginalization began with the arrival of colonial powers and the dispossession and impoverishment processes were completed during the creation of the continents national parks and reserves. Post-independence governments inherited the mess, but barring a few notable exceptions, they have only served to compound the injustices.

‘For the benefit of the nation'
And the great irony here is that ‘for the benefit of the nation' may actually mean for the benefit of a few wealthy foreign hunters with an appalling conservation record - and this will come at the expense of Tanzanian citizens that have historical rights to Loliondo and a belief system and pastoralist lifestyle in keeping with being natural conservators of wildlife.

This decision points to one of three scenarios.
1) The Tanzanian government simply has no regard for the traditional land rights of their citizens
2) They again have failed to understand the dynamics and direct links between alienated and impoverished rural communities and many of the conservation battles taking place in and around protected areas or
3) Both of the above are correct and this has led to high-level politicians believing the financial takings on offer are acceptable. It's a decision that must be questioned at every level.

This battle is far from over. As a local Maasai councillor has said, "We are not ready to surrender even one meter of our land to investors for whatever reasons."


Read more articles by Ian Michler
Walking with lions - Conservation or abuse? http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/world/alert-lions.html
Wildlife as a commodity - South Africa's lack of 'ecological intelligence' http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/world/w ... odity.html
Conservation quandary -What conservation works? http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/world/a ... urism.html
Rhino poaching- the poacher tells all. http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/world/r ... acher.html

[Flutterby]

[mposthumus]

[Bushcraft]

[mouseinthehouse]

I have signed petitions against this in the last week

[Lisbeth]

Over 50 multinationals bid for construction of hydropower dam in Tanzania’s game reserve

BY HUAXIA - SEPTEMBER 25, 2017 - XINHUA

DAR ES SALAAM: At least 50 multinational companies have expressed their bids for the construction of the Rufiji hydropower project at Stiegler’s Gorge in the Selous Game Reserve, one of the largest faunal reserves of the world, located in the south of Tanzania.


A roller is perched on a branch in Selous Game Reserve, southeast Tanzania, Oct. 11, 2013. (Xinhua/Zhang Ping)

President John Magufuli said in Arusha city on Saturday that the bidding has attracted 50 foreign companies after the Ministry of Energy and Minerals announced the tendering process in August this year.

According to the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, bidders were required to have minimum average annual construction turnover of 500 million U.S. dollars calculated as certified payments received for contracts in progress and or completed within last five years.

The Selous Game Reserve covers 50,000 square kilometers with the proposed project expected to use a mere 3 percent of the area.

The project will see the construction of the largest dam in Tanzania along the Rufiji River in the Selous Game Reserve.

Once it comes to completion, the proposed power station is expected to generate 2,100 megawatts (MW) of electricity. Currently, Tanzania generates only 1,460 MW of power.

The proposed project however has its fair share of controversies.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the world’s leading conservation organization, said in a report that the project threatens an important wetland as well as the livelihoods of more than 200,000 people in impoverished areas.

The Selous, which covers nearly 50,000 square kilometers, has been under pressure from poachers who have decimated its elephant population to supply the illegal ivory market, said the WWF report.

The reserve is also home to the critically endangered black rhinoceros.

However, President Magufuli has insisted that the implementation of Stiegler’s Gorge power project will go ahead despite criticism from various sections, including environmental conservation stakeholders.

Read original article: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017- ... 637118.htm

[Lisbeth]

Man Friday: Africa’s greatest game park under imminent threat

Opinionista • Tony Weaver • 6 August 2019

Tanzania’s President John ‘The Bulldozer’ Magufuli has announced his government will deproclaim the vast Selous Game Reserve and divide it into the Nyerere National Park and a hunting zone. One of the world’s greatest conservation areas is being dismantled.

First published in Die Burger

It is one of the greatest wilderness areas in the world, and the biggest single game sanctuary in Africa. But now its ecological integrity is to be irrevocably changed, and its very existence is under threat.

The sanctuary is Tanzania’s vast Selous Game Reserve, a 54,600km² wilderness that President John “The Bulldozer” Magufuli has just announced is to be split into two, with one section declared as the Nyerere National Park, and the rest reserved as a hunting bloc.

Now under imminent threat of being deproclaimed as a Unesco World Heritage Site, the Selous in the mid-1970s was Africa’s greatest sanctuary for elephants, with more than 110,000 within its borders. Then came the ivory wars of the late-1970s and early 1980s, and again, the wave of poaching of the past decade. More than 90% of the elephants were slaughtered, and today just over 15,000 elephants remain in the greater Selous-Mikumi-Niassa ecosystem.

The ecological integrity of the Selous is already under threat after the government gave the go-ahead for an open-cast uranium mine in the south and granted scores of oil and natural gas exploration concessions in the reserve.

In June 2017, Magufuli’s government gave the go-ahead for the damming of the iconic Stiegler’s Gorge on the Rufiji River, effectively tearing the northern heart out of the reserve. This was immediately followed by the handing out of logging permits to 17 companies to remove 1,500km² of forest – estimated at 2.6 million trees – to make way for the dam.

This was justified as removing the trees which would, in any case, die because of inundation, but effectively meant the bulldozing of roads and creation of infrastructure to enable logging. In March, the luxury Azura Selous Lodge suddenly shut its doors when loggers moved in unannounced.

The knock-on effects of the dam are well-documented – the Rufiji Delta is home to East Africa’s biggest intact mangrove forests. Its seasonal flooding not only fertilises the key farming areas on the flood plains and maintains a delicate balance between fresh and saline water, its algal blooms also feed ocean plankton, crucial to fish and prawn stocks, and to the annual migration of whale sharks.

Now Magufuli has announced his government will deproclaim the Selous and divide it into the Nyerere National Park and a hunting zone. One of the world’s greatest conservation areas is being dismantled.

Magufuli disingenuously states that “only 3%” of the Selous is being alienated. Well, that 3% is the heart of the Selous, now being opened up to roads, a massive dam, power station, pylons, residential infrastructure, airfields – and to mineral, timber and wildlife exploitation.

The new national park is being named after modern Tanzania’s founding father, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. In 1961, Nyerere stated that, “The survival of our wildlife is a matter of grave concern to all of us in Africa… we will do everything in our power to make sure that our children’s grandchildren will be able to enjoy this rich and precious inheritance… the success or failure of which not only affects the continent of Africa but the rest of the world as well.”

He must be turning in his grave.

[Lisbeth]

[RogerFraser]

Sad that most African countries don't see the value they have right in-front of them and chase after riches of dams ,mines etc all in the name of progress

[Lisbeth]

Those projects will only last for a very limited time, while wildlife will be an asset forever if handled in the right way