Ngorongoro mgogoro
#HandsOffNgorongoro
I am sure that more people in the world know what Ngorongoro is or where it is to be more specific, than the word mgogoro which means conflict in Kiswahili. However, these two words have been simultaneously used and reported again lately, hence the pun!
The natural World Heritage Site in Tanzania is a conservation area reserved by the government and since independence it has also been recognized as the home of the Maasai people. Briefly the Maasai people have lived here for centuries and have been the original conservationists of this beautiful site.
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority proudly touts online and its brochures the community-based activities it supports and how community conservation is ongoing in the area. Well, this is the veneer that hides an uglier truth. Recently there has been another attempt and unsubstantiated spin coming from the authority and some local government officials to push out the Maasai people from their ancestral land in neighboring Loliondo and in Ngorongoro. Just to be clear this is not something new; it is a continuous struggle since the 1990s that has seen the Maasai people and activists clashing with the interests of so-called wealthy “conservationists” in particular Otterlo Business Corporation — flashback to “Loliondogate” scandal
Few days ago, the NCAA wildlife rangers detained 6 (six) journalists who were enroute to cover the renewed conflict and after much local and international uproar the journalists were released. To make things worse, there is currently a poor attempt by the authority and unscrupulous local government leaders to spin the situation with the help of unprincipled journalists where they posted short videos lamenting seeing cows instead of wildlife in Ngorongoro (something that is completely false) and decrying the poor conditions that the Maasai live in. What this is about is getting the Maasai people to move out from the area in the name of development.
For many of us who have been visitors to this beautiful site and area, Ngorongoro is Maasai land, their ancestral right to live there and no amount of spin can change that. As a young child, I remember seeing the Maasai grazing their cows in Ngorongoro area and living peacefully with the wildlife. They became a “nuisance” after the economic liberalization of Tanzania in the 1990s, when land was opened to investors. Ironically it is us, the so-called “civilized” tourists who cause more damage to the area but that is a topic for another day. And then there are the hunting blocks like that of OBE that extend for over 1,500 square kilometers and videos had surfaced over the years of mass hunting of wildlife and other abuses by some so-called safari companies like Green Mile Safari. How can one possibly blame the Maasai people for harming the ecosystem? Not to mention that the government of Tanzania has no ground to say anything about environmental conservation after it cut down over 2 million trees in the World Heritage site Selous to clear land for the white elephant project of Stiegler’s Gorge Dam.
And just to be clear, the government’s so called conservation needs and peddling of hunting blocks, do not supersede the Maasai people’s right to live on their own land and preserve their way of life.
The whole world must stand with the Maasai people to protect their ancestral land and to make sure that no one and no entity can make them strangers in their own home in the name of conservation and/or development
#HandsOffNgorongoro
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