SAVE MY FRIEND SAITOTI AND HIS MAASAI TRIBE FROM EXTINCTION

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$7,920 raised of

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SAVE MY FRIEND SAITOTI AND HIS MAASAI TRIBE FROM EXTINCTION

Julia Banda is organizing this fundraiser.

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I met Saitoti in 1999 when we were both 18. I was traveling around Tanzania with a student summer outreach program, and he guided a tour of his Maasai village. He showed me his mud hut with a single bed where he slept with his family and told me how his people have lived in synchrony with their surrounding ecosystem for hundreds of years. We became pen pals and have written to each other ever since. A decade later, I helped support Saitoti so that he could go to law school. He has since worked for several NGOs, supporting the rights of Indigenous societies around the world.

Now his Maasai tribe is being threatened with extinction. Despite overwhelming documentation proving their legal right to their land as citizens, the current Tanzanian government is forcibly evicting the Maasai, driven primarily by royal Dubai money to create exclusive hunting grounds. (This latest land grab was highlighted last year in the Atlantic Monthly, “This Will Finish Us.”) Now, regardless of where Maasai graze their goats and cattle, rangers are seizing their animals and then holding them hostage for insurmountable fees. Without goats and cattle, the Maasai have no livelihood.

My friend Saitoti is living this nightmare. Not only has Saitoti’s own village been shot at and raided, but he has seen his fellow Maasai beaten and evicted. (Please watch the interview with Saitoti above by the Social and Environmental Justice Group, Namati.)

IT GETS WORSE.

While Indigenous People own, occupy, or use only 25% of the world’s surface area, they safeguard 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. Indigenous Peoples livelihoods continue to be threatened around the world. In just the last 20 years, more than a quarter million Indigenous People worldwide were evicted to make way for ecotourism, carbon-offset schemes, and other activities that fall under the banner of conservation. That figure is expected to soar.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Your donation of any amount can help Saitoti save his Maasai village, and hopefully the Maasai way of life before it disappears completely. You will be helping Saitoti fund a local NGO he started last spring that aims to:

• Educate the Maasai on how to defend their land rights (since most Maasai can’t read or write!)

• Advocate. Strengthen alliances between Indigenous families and tribes to foster solidarity and collective advocacy.

• Integrate Indigenous peoples’ cultural practices (stories, songs and land use management) into conservation activities by environmental organizations.

• Collaborate with universities and cultural institutions to document traditional knowledge and cultural practices.

Saitoti, his village, and I thank you for your help and generosity!