maasai people driven off ancestral land because of luxury safari companies

In order to accommodate the rich whites and foreigners who want to watch or hunt lions, zebras, giraffes, and other wildlife, hundreds of homes and thousands of Maasai people in Tanzania have been burned and displaced from their ancestral land in Loliondo. And despite its sanctioning as “conservation effort”, a recent report highlighted the famine and fear “caused by biodiversity loss, climate change, inequality and discrimination towards indigenous groups.” So what exactly is being “conserved” outside of economic, ecological, and human exploitation?

“One Maasai quoted in the report said Thomson had built a camp in the middle of their village, blocking access,” the Guardian reports. “Imagine, a stranger comes and constructs a big building in the centre of your home,” reads the testimony. “Our livestock cannot go to the waterhole – there is no other route for the villagers or their livestock.”

The report says villagers have been driven off, assaulted or arrested by local police, park rangers or security guards.