In Focus: Highlighted Environmental Human Rights Defenders

Kady Hammer
Jan 10, 2017
2 min read

Tanzania: Edward Loure

Beginning in 1950, the government of Tanzania began establishing national parks for conservation purposes, but the result was displacing indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands and forcing them to be “conservation refugees.” One such indigenous group is the Maasai tribe which is a seminomadic peaceful tribe migrating in the Simanjiro plains and herding their cattle according to the seasons. Not only are land concessions for parks impacting the indigenous groups, encroaching urban migrants are also impeding traditional rangelands.

Edward Loure, a member of the Maasai tribe, was raised in the Simanjiro plains where his family raised cattle on the surrounding lands. The government sectioned off their village to establish the Tarangire National Park in 1970 which in effect forced out the Maasai member residing in that area.

Edward began efforts to protect his tribe and their customs through leading the Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT). UCRT has championed community land rights and sustainable development for over 20 years in Tanzania. The Massai’s strong communal culture was the basis for the UCRT’s innovate approach to applying the Tanzanian Village Land Act by way of Certificates of Customary Right of Occupancy (CCRO). These CCROs provide communities with the rights to title unlike conventional means through which land is conveyed only to individuals. Through formalizing community rights to land, they are able to secure indivisible community rights to manage, use and protect the land now and for future generations.

In 2014, the Tanzanian government issued the first CCRO to the Maasai community in the Monduli district which guaranteed their rights, by law, to the land. Since the first issuance, CCROs have been utilized to protect over 200,000 acres of rangeland in Tanzania. Communities protected by CCROs have demonstrated their exceptional ability to protect their land while also ensuring their community and cattle thrives.