Indigenous people across Africa and Asia are being harassed, killed, tortured and evicted in the name of conservation.
The rangers and officials perpetrating this abuse are trained, equipped and funded by conservation organizations like WCS, WWF and African Parks. Governments in the Global North support it with taxpayers’ money.
Conservation organizations and their funders dismiss the abuses as the offences of just a “few bad apples”. But independent research has repeatedly shown that the problem is widespread and embedded in the very model of militarized and colonial fortress conservation. These organizations have updated their image with claims of practising “community conservation” while still evicting Indigenous peoples from their land, destroying their livelihoods, and perpetuating the abuse.
Indigenous people have been fighting the violence and evictions, which do nothing for biodiversity but are killing their families and destroying their ways of life. But they need help to ensure that the governments and institutions stop supporting, funding and defending this racist model of conservation.
Your email will be sent to public funders and conservation organizations, that have been linked to land theft and terrible abuses.
Michael Schloms, German Development Ministry, Christiane Laibach, German Development Bank KfW, Inka Gnittke, German Environment Ministry, Thani Mohamed Soilihi, French Minister in charge of international partnerships, Emanuelle Blatmann, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rémy Rioux and Sandra Kassab, French development agency (AFD), Koen Doens, Hans Stausboll and Carla Montesi, Directorate-General for International Partnerships, European Commission and Stephen Guertin, US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Copy to:
Christof Schenck, Director, Frankfurt Zoological Society, Peter Fearnhead, CEO, African Parks, Jean Labuschagne, Conservation Development and Assurance Director, African Parks, Kirsten Schuijt, Director General, WWF, Robert Menzi, Interim President and CEO, WCS and Matthew Gould, CEO, ZSL
