Why are Tanzania’s Maasai being forced off their ancestral land? | The Stream

Tanzania has renewed efforts to evict thousands of indigenous people from their ancestral land in a move that the government claims will help bolster the country’s tourism industry. The land in question is the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, in the northern part of the country. It’s a UNESCO designated World Heritage site for its global importance to biodiversity and a major tourist attraction for big game hunters. It’s also home to roughly 70,000 Maasai people, a semi-nomadic ethnic group. For years, Tanzania has tried to gain control of the land in an attempt to create a trophy hunting corridor for tourism companies like the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based Otterlo Business Company, which is based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE.) The group’s exclusive 25-year deal with Tanzania, which brought in millions of dollars for the country’s military, ended in 2017. The threat of eviction has grabbed the attention of the global activist organization, Avaaz, whose online petition has garnered more than 3 million signatures, including Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo. In this episode of The Stream, we discuss the importance of the land for both the Maasai and the Tanzanian government and ask what solutions there are to resolve the matter. Join the conversation: TWITTER: https://twitter.com/AJStream FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/AJStream Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe #aljazeeraenglish
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