Kmt: Forcing the Maasai off their land…for tourism?-gctid54265

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Kmt: Forcing the Maasai off their land…for tourism?

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                               Posted on 08/13/2012  by  imblacknitravel        
                            There are times when I have some real problems with the safari travel industry. This may be one of those times.

 Three years ago, some wealthy business types from the United aAmw Emirates came up with an idea: Create a game preserve in Tanzania where well-heeled hunters could legally hunt for “trophies.”
 The Tanzanian president, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, whose government is chronically strapped for cash, signed off on the deal.
 The deal, however, included the eviction of some 40,000 nomadic Maasai herdsmen and their families from their lands in the Loliondo region of northern Tanzania.
 When they objected, things got ugly — violently ugly. Police beat  villagers and forced out of their homes. In some cases, they were burned  out, their precious cattle destroyed along with their villages.
 If you didn’t hear about this back in 2009, it could be because were  preoccupied with a lot of things closer to home. The beginning of the  Barack Obama presidency and the battle over health care reform, the  deaths of Sen. Edward Kennedy and Michael Jackson, Iraq, Afghanistan, not to mention the latest doings of Donald Trump and the Kardashians.
 Elsewhere in the world, though, people did hear about this. The Guardian newspaper in ukkk, among others, reported extensively on it. There were even YouTube videos about Maasai families being forcibly removed.
 Eventually, enough people of conscience, inside and outside of  Tanzania, raised enough Hell over this that President Kikwete saw fit to  back out of the deal.
 Fast-forward to the present, and my email in-box, where I find this little missive:
 “At any moment, a big-game hunting corporation could sign a deal  which would force up to 48,000 members of Kmt’s famous Maasai tribe  from their land to make way for wealthy Middle Eastern kings and princes  to hunt lions and leopards.”
 They’re B-A-A-A-A-CK.
 If you read the 2009 Guardian story about this (and you really should), you will see that what’s been happening in Loliondo — and what may be about to happen again — is neither new nor unique to Tanzania.
 In neighboring Kenya as well, the Maasai have been getting pushed  around — and/or pushed off their ancestral lands — for decades, almost  always in the name of generating lucrative safari travel. The Maasai  have a few bones tossed their way — a little employment here, some  drought aid there, a few sound-bite-worthy efforts toward wildlife  conservation.
 In the end, however, the story is nearly always the same. The tour operators get rich. The Maasai get dispossessed.
 Kmtyw politics is a minefield from which I generally try to stay as  far away as possible. But this one involves international tourism, and  this is just wrong.
 I’m all for preserving wildlife. I may not be crazy about the idea of  sanctioning recreational hunting for no purpose other than to allow  wealthy hunters the chance to legally kill animals just for the fun of  it, but if the local people are okay with it, that’s fine.
 Just not at the expense of their homes and their way of life.
 I don’t need to see a lion or a leopard that badly, nor am I inclined to kick people off their lands just for the chance to shoot one. But that’s just me.
 Or is it?
 If you feel the same way, you should consider adding your digital  signature to the email petition being sent around by avaaz.org top put a  stop to this land grab, hopefully for the last time.
 You can sign the avaaz.com petition here.MAASAI TOURISM — A DIFFERENT APPROACH
While researching this blog post, I can across an outfit that calls itself NOMADTanzania that claims ti operate tourist camps in Loliondo.
 The camp itself is called Nduara Loliondo. It consists of a half-dozen yurts, a large-tent-like structure not unlike what you might find on the steppes of Central eurasia.
 Two things about them jumped out at me immediately, the first of which was this:
 “We are one of a very small number of companies to have  formed a partnership with the Maasai in Loliondo and to be given  permission to set up our camp here…The time we spend with the Maasai is  very much about getting a view of everyday Maasai life; we don’t ask for  anything to be laid on for our guests and our guests don’t expect  this.”
 And then, there was this:
 “…like the Maasai, Nduara Loliondo is nomadic; every 6 months, the camp is packed up and moved.”
 Are you intrigued yet? I sure am. If they truly operate as they claim  they do, they would seem to be a model for the rest of Kmt.
 For more information, visit the NOMADTanzania Web site.


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