MISA workshop on conservation & land grabbing from pastoralists

Immediately before the international Tropentag conference in Vienna, Australia, in September 2024, a workshop was held on “Nature conservation, land grabbing and Indigenous Peoples’ rights: Maasai in Northern Tanzania are defending their own vision for conservation and sustainable livelihoods”. Co-organisers were the Institute of Development Research at BOKU University, the Maasai International Solidarity Alliance (MISA), Welthaus Graz, the Centre for Agroecology, Water & Resilience (CAWR) at Coventry University and the Austrian Development Agency.

Conservation areas have proliferated in the last 20 years, leading to mass displacement of local people. This is largely because of the ‘fortress conservation’ model, which separates humans from Nature and sees pastoralists and Indigenous Peoples (IPs) as a threat to Nature. Displacement of pastoralists and IPs as a direct result of such approaches to conservation is likely to increase, given the recent Montreal-Kunming agreement to protect 30% of the earth’s surface by 2030. The workshop brought together perspectives on nature and biodiversity conservation and the impacts on the human rights of pastoralists and IPs, using the current displacement of Maasai pastoralists in northern Tanzania as a case study.

The workshop panel, moderated by Priscilla Claeys (CAWR), consisted of:

• Joseph Moses Oleshangay, Maasai International Solidarity Alliance (MISA)
• Lerato Thakholi, Sociology of Development & Change Group, Wageningen University, and Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, South Africa
• Erwin Künzi, Austrian Development Agency
• Ann Waters-Bayer, International Year of Rangelands & Pastoralists (IYRP) Global Secretariat, CELEP and German Institute for Tropical & Subtropical Agriculture (DITSL)

During the workshop on 11 September, Joseph Oleshangay launched the Maasai vision for conservation and land sovereignty, and Sigrun Zwanzger from Welthaus Graz briefly presented the policy brief of CIDSE (International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity) on “Protecting human rights of indigenous peoples and local communities to halt biodiversity loss”.

A weblink to the recording of the workshop will be available shortly.

Posted on 1 October 2024 in News, Pastoralism & Climate Change, Pastoralism & Natural Resources, Pastoralism, Mobility & Land Tenure