Lies and more Lies against the Maasai of Ngorongoro, Loliondo, and Serengeti

There are many lies from the Tanzanian ambassador to Germany and other government officials

For example, see https://youtu.be/dNZjbH_0qIo 

and  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ryrvQWKjF4&t=2718s (2 hours long)


The following points are to counter those lies:

•The notion that the number of people in Ngorongoro, Serengeti, or Loliondo are too many:

Ngorongoro + Serengeti + Loliondo, together are the size of the country of Belgium. They are not overpopulated. The population density in Ngorongoro is 10 people / km2. Their settlements occupy 5% of the land.

•Maasai live there sustainably except for restrictions imposed by the government on cattle minerals and watering places, and cultivation. See Sustainability, Population, & Land Grabbing

•Msomera (designated by the government as place of relocation) has been a registered village for years. The people that live there have legal rights to their land.

•Illiteracy or poverty are not a reasons to move people from their land. And when the government stops social services to force eviction, this is an outrage!

•Human-wildlife conflict incidents are no worse than harm done by vehicles in other parts of the country.

•Three children killed by lions pales compared to the dozens of people killed by hyenas in Karatu or hundreds of people killed by traffic accidents in Arusha

•There is no sign of environmental degradation in Ngorongoro except in the crator where the Maasai do not live and do not graze their cattle there. See Environmental Degredation in the Crater

•No mention of the brutal and illegal eviction and demarcation in Loliondo - to establish the Polotet Game Reserve for hunting  by oil-rich UAE royalty. No mention of the illegal burning of houses and forcing people out of Loliondo in 2017.

•Msomera water is not fit for human consumption. It is too salty.

•Loliondo has not been a protected area through German and British colonialism and is not the only source of water for the Serengeti ecosystem (there is no river running through it)

•There has never been agreement by the Maasai, for demarcating the 1,500 km2 in Loliondo.

•Claims that the Maasai were not in the crater before they were expelled from the Serengeti - are lies! See https://youtu.be/XFa7Fcd5tNw - testimony from a Maasai man born in the crator in 1948.

•The voluntary program (eviction) was not voluntary. For the Maasai, it came down to a choice between a rock and hard place.

•The Multiple Land Use model adopted from 2006 did not fail due to incompatibility between the Maasai's pastoral resource use and wildlife conservation , but because of the conservation dogma that separates man from nature.

•The new plan is aimed to grabbing the large part of the land in both Loliondo Division and Ngorongoro Conservation Area for hunting, hunting lodges, and hotels. Apart from 1500sq.km also the whole area of Engaresero (which is community land.) is going to be taken in the name of fake conservation.

•The Maasai have mastered peaceful co-existence with wildlife for centuries.

•Another lie is that Maasai keeping livestock is hurting the Great Migration. 

In the mid-20th century, the blue wildebeest population was decimated to just 300,000 individuals because of disease. When disease management efforts helped the wildebeest population recover back to their historic levels of over 1.5 million, the landscape was brought back into balance and restored to being a natural storage unit for CO2 in less than a decade. They have stayed at 1.5 million since then. They are considered of least concern by The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). When the Maasai are forced to leave, and a game preserve established, hunters, hunting lodges, and hotels will take their place, and wildlife corridors will be closed off.

•Covid money was taken from social services in Ngorongoro, such as health, education, and water, to be spent wastefully on 500-700 small houses (not big enough of one extended family), one primary school, one secondary school, (and so far no clinic) which is not enough to accomodate the thousands of other people who would choose to move there. (There are 25 primary schools in Ngorongoro). The land size per person will not support livestock. The compensation for relocating is usually failed to be rewarded to those who relocate.  The local Msomera people who were already there are complaining that the newcomers are taking their land and told by officials that they - who were there first - were there illegally. Msomera was registered as a full village in 1992, and villagers have title deeds to their own plots.

•Claims that the Maasai are not indigenous based on the so-called fact that the Bantu people migrated through there around 4000-3500 BC before them. 

But the Bantu were not in MaasaiLand (Northern Tanzania, Southern Kenya) when the Maasai arrived there, And most place names in Maasailand are Maasai words.

•Another lie is that, because one man can have many wives, and can have many children, then they all must have many children. 

The truth is that: If a man has many wives, then there are many men without wives. And there are usually only as many women as there are men. Except that, in the absence of good health care, many women and babies die, so there would be even fewer children.

Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations

Indigenous Peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live. Despite their cultural differences, Indigenous Peoples from around the world share common problems related to the protection of their rights as distinct peoples.

Indigenous Peoples have sought recognition of their identities, way of life and their right to traditional lands, territories and natural resources for years, yet throughout history, their rights have always been violated. Indigenous Peoples today, are arguably among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups of people in the world. The international community now recognizes that special measures are required to protect their rights and maintain their distinct cultures and way of life. 

https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/about-us.html

The Maasai oral history says that they originated from the lower Nile Valley north of Lake Turkana (Northwest Kenya) and began migrating south around the 15th century. They arrived to a long land mass, stretching from what is now northern Kenya to central Tanzania between the 17th and late 18th century.

There was no conflict with Bantu people when the Maasai arrived there.

•Tanzanian Law: The land was owned and used by the Maasai before and during colonial times under customary ownership, which was recognized by the Land Act of 1923. In the 1970s the villages in Loliondo and Sale were registered under the Village and Ujamaa Villages Act, in 1982 under the Local Government (District Authorities) Act, and then got further protection as village land belonging to the village assembly (all adult villagers) managed by the village council under Village Land Act No.5 of 1999. Eviction from this land is in contravention and violation of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, Village Land Act 1999, Wildlife Conservation Act, 2009, and the Treaty for the Establishment of the EAC. 

A man from Ngorongoro who moved to Msomera is lamenting and blames the government for the loss/death of his cows. About 40 cows died due to dryness and lack of grasses.

The constructed houses are too small. Three bedrooms are not enough for an extended family with six adult children.

No compensations promised from Samia were received.