Skip to main content

Maasai evictions in Tanzania

EDM (Early Day Motion) 735: tabled on 08 May 2024

Tabled in the 2023-24 session.

This motion has been signed by 14 Members. It has not yet had any amendments submitted.

Motion text

That this House stands in solidarity with the Maasai people of Tanzania who are being forcibly evicted by their Government on the false pretext that they are damaging the eco systems through population growth; notes that some 150,000 Maasai people live in the Ngorongoro and Loliondo Conservation; further notes that the United Nations Special Rapporteurs have already called on the Tanzanian Government to immediately halt plans for the relocation of indigenous people; also notes that on 5 February 2024 the Secretary General of the UN made a detailed report of violent evictions to the 55th Session of the Human Rights Council, from the Society for Threatened Peoples; notes that Tanzania persists in violating international law by depriving Maasai in the greater Serengeti Ecosystem of their access to grazing land and forcing relocation; further notes the removal of funding by the World Bank for the REGROW project; expresses alarm that the Tanzanian security forces are using unlawful force to remove local indigenous communities without consultation or lawful reason to do so; calls on the Tanzanian Government to cease such action forthwith, to permit visits by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to repatriate those removed to date, and to compensate those injured in the process; further calls on British tourists to boycott areas where forcible evictions are taking place; and also calls on the United Arab Emirates to refuse to participate in any displacement of indigenous people, and to cease to engage in trophy hunting in Tanzania.