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Elevating Voices — How "Community" Conservancies Devastate Land & Lives in Northern Kenya

Recorded January 18, 2022, Indigenous land rights defenders from Kenya, along with renowned human rights and conservation experts discuss the findings of the Oakland Institute's November 2021 report, Stealth Game, which exposed the devastating impact of privatized and neocolonial wildlife conservation by one of Kenya’s largest conservation agencies, Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), on Indigenous pastoralist communities.

Although terms like “participatory,” “community driven,” and “local empowerment” are extensively used, the report exposed how NRT — funded by western aid agencies and environmental NGOs — has allegedly dispossessed pastoralist communities of their ancestral lands through corruption, intimidation and violence, to create wildlife conservancies for conservation dollars. The report makes it clear that top-down fortress conservation has to be replaced with truly Indigenous-led conservation efforts. This alone will ensure preservation of the remaining biodiversity while respecting interests, rights, and dignity of the true stewards of the land.


Speakers

Welcome by Alison Wright, Director, Environmental Defenders Collaborative, Global Greengrants Fund

Anuradha Mittal, Author of Stealth Game & Executive Director, The Oakland Institute

Dr. Mordecai Ogada, co-author of The Big Conservation Lie & Executive Director, Conservation Solutions Afrika, Kenya

Violet Matiru, Executive Director, Millennium Community Development Initiatives, Kenya

Major Abdinoor Dima Jillo, Borana Council of Elders, Isiolo, Kenya

Fiore Longo, Research & Advocacy Officer, Survival International; Director Survival International France & Spain


About the Organizations

The Oakland Institute is an independent policy think tank, bringing fresh ideas and bold action to the most pressing social, economic, and environmental issues of our time.

Survival International is a movement of people from over 100 countries whose vision is a world where tribal peoples are respected as contemporary societies and their human rights protected.