Human Rights: Hunting firm denies plan to evict Loliondo Maasai

BY CORRESPONDENT

An Arab royal hunting firm has denied allegations that it plots with the state to force thousands of Maasai community off their land to pave the way for a commercial game hunting.

An online activism site ‘Avaaz.org’ claims that up to 48,000 Maasai pastoralists living in the Loliondo area are facing eviction in a deal that could hand over a large chunk of their ancestral land for commercial hunting by royals from the United Arab Emirates.

Avaaz.org is currently convincing people around the world to sign a petition to oppose any attempt to evict the Maasai from their traditional land.

Nearly 900,000 people have signed the Stop the Serengeti Sell-Off petition on the online site Avaaz.org, which claims, “the Tanzanian President’s approval of the deal may be imminent, but if we act now, we can stop this sell-off of the Serengeti.”

But the Ortello Business Company Ltd (OBC) an UAE multi-million-dollar hunting corporation came out clear, refuting claims that it plans to purchase the wildlife rich Loliondo Game Controlled Area (LGCA).

“There’s no such a plan at all because Tanzanian land laws do not allow foreigners to purchase land,” the OBC Country Director, Issac Mollel said.

A seemingly annoyed, Mollel said OBC as other multi-national-hunting companies, operates on Tanzania’s soil under a five-year-renewed concession arrangement.

“Honestly, there’s no conflict whatsoever at Loliondo area, save for the social media,” OBC chief noted, adding that it is high time local scribes told their own story.

According to him, the so-called Loliondo land conflict has long been distorted to cater for interests of few individuals or organisations.

“We have been the development partner with the Loliondo villagers since our inception. Apart from these baseless campaigns, we haven’t encountered any problem with the real people in our area of operations,” Mollel explained.

A local activist, Samwel Nangiria, accused the government of planning to create a corridor of 1,500 sq km for use by UAE hunters.

"The government is telling us to compromise but people say they have given up enough. Giving up the Serengeti national park was a lifelong compromise then. They will not be pushed again."

Nangiria, coordinator of the Ngonett civil society group, said that last mass evictions took place in 2009, forcing thousands of Maasai to surrender land where they had grazed cattle for generations.

Dr Gasper Mphongwa, a lecturer at Tumaini University in Moshi says that in order to solve this endless land tenure conflict in Loliondo the government needs to create a system where community, wildlife and investors can live together in harmony.

However, the government proposed land use plan two years ago with an eye to create buffer zones between areas for pasture, wildlife, ecosystem and ecology of the area in an effort to address the land and natural resource use conflict, but communities backed by civil society organisations rebuffed the idea.

OBC is the most lucrative hunting firm, paying Tanzania nearly $800,000 in concession and trophy fees per annum.

The firm has been hunting in 4,000 sq km natural resource abundant block of Loliondo in Arusha since 1992. However, its contract expired in December 2009 and was renewed last year.

OBC, he says, has been paying the central government its dues amounting to $560,000 and $150,000 eight villages around the LGCA as well as $109,000 to Ngorongoro District Council per annum.

Ngorongoro District Commissioner Elias Wawa Lali confirmed that the OBC has been complying with the contract terms.

He says there are eight beneficiary villages, which used to reap $16,666.7 annually. These are Ololosokwan, Soitsambu, Oloipiri, Oloirien-Magaiduru, Loosoito-Maaloni, Piyaya, Malambo and Arash.

Soitsambu gets as much as double because OBC headquarters is located there, DC says adding the corporation had also funded the construction of Loliondo Secondary School, Kololoti River Bridge, health facilities, among others.

The Loliondo Game Controlled Area which is partly the hunting block is important due to the fact it is water catchment area supplying water to key areas of the Serengeti National Park and other parts of the Loliondo grazing land, a buffer zone for the Serengeti National Park dispersal and wildebeest birthing ground.

It is a key corridor for the wildebeest migration between Maasai Mara linking Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the Serengeti National Park, and probably the most prime-hunting block that generates over $800,000 to Tanzania.

Records show that there is no other District in Tanzania with hunting area, other than Ngorongoro District, that receives enormous funds from hunting business for community development.

Analysts say that it is almost impossible for the government to leave as lucrative as OBC to go elsewhere simply because of outside pressure.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN (08/09/2012): http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=45593