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[Cover photo: Maasai mapper using Mapeo to document the sacred Ol Doinyo Lengai or "the Mountain of God". Photo credit: María Alvarez Malvido]
More than 100,000 Maasai People from Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), in Tanzania, are living under threat of eviction, in the name of conservation.
As seen before with the establishment of Serengeti National Park and Pololeti Game Reserve, this threat comes from the legacies of colonial administration, perpetuated by the Tanzanian government with plans to further dispossess the Maasai of their ancestral lands for commercial demands in elite tourism and trophy hunting. Last year, we learned more about this situation by meeting members of FINAL GOVERNANCE, a community-based Maasai organization that we are now supporting in their efforts to incorporate community mapping into their land defense strategies.
The Maasai: Stewards of Ngorongoro, and the world’s biodiversity
The Maasai are Indigenous pastoralist people living across Northern Tanzania and Southern and Central Kenya. They have inhabited the area for centuries, moving their herds of cattle with the seasons through the vast savannahs, highland, plains and forests, living and moving alongside the the zebras, antelopes, giraffes, lions and all other inhabitants of this richly biodiverse region.
Maasai identity is deeply rooted in centuries of love and care for the land, embodied in ancestral knowledge and stories, language, songs and spiritual practices. Indigenous Peoples’ intimate relationship to place and landscape, in addition to their internationally recognised rights, means they are usually the most appropriate stewards of their homelands, which they will defend from threats including destructive models of development. Losing access to land they care for, such as through evictions, is therefore a significant threat to both Maasai culture and also the delicate ecosystem and biodiversity of their ancestral territories, which is interconnected with their livelihoods.
In June 2024, Maasai men traveled to the crater - in contravention to their exclusion from it - to perform a traditional ceremony called “Engipaata” - a rite of passage ceremony for boys. [Photo credit: Maasai mapper]
Forced evictions and other human rights violations
The Maasai of Tanzania have faced evictions, land restrictions and resettlement in the name of conservation since colonial times. In 1951, Serengeti National Park was established and consequently, Maasai were evicted in 1959. The same year, Ngorongoro was made a Conservation Area with clauses that protected Maasai continued presence. "Despite legal protection, Maasai in Ngorongoro has faced broken promises, restriction of means of securing livelihoods, grounded social services and now facing threats of evictions. In Loliondo, the government established Pololeti Game Reserve in 2022 and consequently displaced thousands of Maasai to give room for exclusive hunting business” explained Maasai lawyer Joseph Oleshangay.
The evictions and violence reached a climax most recently in 2022 in Loliondo and 2022-2024 in Ngorongoro. The Maasai are now being served a ‘voluntary’ relocation notice to leave the Ngorogoro Conservation Area and have been offered homes on the coast, hundreds of miles away and with a completely different ecosystem to the one that they are intimately connected with through centuries of stewardship. If they do not comply with the ‘voluntary’ relocation, they have been threatened with forced evictions by the Tanzanian authorities. Alongside evictions and four years of denying basic social services and rights including access to schools and hospitals, the government is guilty of diverse human rights violations that are a threat to Maasai livelihoods: burning down homesteads, poisoning their cattle through the salt licks they depend on, destroying water resources and roads, and threatening violence against those from the community who speak up against the evictions.
In July, the National Electoral Commission removed the Ngorongoro division from its voter registration plan, effectively denying the Maasai from 11 Wards, 25 Villages, and 96 Hamlets (sub-villages) their right to register to vote in the upcoming elections. The Maasai from these locations in Ngorongoro will also be unable to obtain birth or death certificates. Moreover, the whole Maasai community of Ngorongoro found they had bee re-registered at polling in Musomera district, including community members who had died several years previously having never visited Musomera.
As a response, on August 18th, an estimated 40,000 Maasai blocked the Ngorongoro-Serengeti road to demand the respect of their rights and raise international awareness of the situation. After six days of demonstrations, Government representatives visited and made commitments to stop the forced evictions, restore access to services, and restore voting rights. Maasai and local organizations are doubtful that the Government will keep these commitments, and are also fearful for the safety of those who played significant roles during the demonstration, as in the past the Government has carried out false arrests and targeted human rights and environmental defenders
Their land, their home; their maps, their evidence
We met FINAL GOVERNANCE back in November 2023, when members of our team traveled to Mount Elgon in Kenya to support the “Daughters for Earth Gathering”. In this event, hosted and organized by our Ogiek partners Chepkitale Indigenous People Developement Project (CIPDP), Indigenous land defenders from East Africa gathered to share experiences and learn about the Ogiek’s successful strategy using maps for advocacy and legal impact.
Inspired by this experience, the Maasai of Ngorongoro requested urgent support from Awana Digital to help them set up a project to map NCA, before they lost access to it. We made arrangements for an emergency training in Mapeo which we codelivered with CIPDP in early 2024, training 25 community members, including Elders, women and youth in mapping, data gathering and other techniques to document their ancestral knowledge before it was too late.
The community mappers have now collected data covering 90% of their lands, documenting customary land use, ancestral knowledge and sacred places in addition to collecting evidence of human rights violations. Inspired by other Indigenous Peoples using maps to defend their land, such as the Ogiek, the Waorani and Siekopai in Ecuador and Peru, they are preparing their own maps to serve as documentation and evidence in their advocacy and legal strategies to oppose the evictions.
In May, the Tanzanian Government evicted around 20,000 Maasai people from eight villages surrounding the Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) to accommodate its plans to expand the airport. The Maasai mappers from Ngorongoro moved quickly and visited the area, using Mapeo to map the houses, water sources, prayer sites, burial sites and public services that had been demolished. They collected place-based evidence of human rights violations to support ongoing litigation and their submission of this case to the UN Committee of Elimination of Racial Discrimination, with support of Forest Peoples Program.
A call to action
In July 2024, the Maasai International Solidarity Alliance (MISA) published the Maasai Vision of Conservation, “a powerful alternative to the colonial, fortress-style conservation models that have been imposed on Maasai, leading to the displacement and alienation of the community.” Different from the fortress conservation model that has been imposed by the Tanzanian government and international conservation agencies, this document presents a community-based framework of conservation that is grounded in the Maasai’s respect for wildlife and nature, their right to communal land, the protection of traditional pastoralist practices, and the transfer of wildlife management and tourism to community hands.
This document is also a call to the international community to support the Maasai’s fight for their land and take a stand against all policies that threaten their way of life. Awana Digital stands with them and their demand for safety for all human and environmental rights defenders.
To learn more about the impacts of the evictions in Ngorongoro, Tanzania, take a look at these articles:
- "This will finish us", a cover story from The Atlantic
- “The ‘Land Grab’ Displacing The Maasai People”, an interview with the author of The Atlantic article above, contains similar information in audio format.
- “Kicking Native People Off Their Land Is a Horrible Way to Save the Planet”, an article from the New York Times.
- “It’s Like Killing Culture. Human Rights Impacts of Relocating Tanzania’s Maasai" Report by Human Rights Watch.
- The Looming Threat of Eviction. The Continued Displacement of the Maasai Under the Guide of Conservation in Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Report from the Oakland Institute.
- Interview with Maasai lawyer Joseph Oleshangay, with the Oakland Institute.
- Full version of Maasai Conservation Vision.
- Graphic summary of Maasai Conservation Vision.
If you are interested in supporting the Maasai of Tanzania to defend Indigenous land rights and protect the biodiverse forests and grasslands of their traditional territories, you can donate here.
If you are interested in giving a larger donation to get in touch with us at info@awana.digital