Did you know that 80% of the most biodiverse areas on Earth are home to indigenous and tribal peoples?
Long before the word “conservation” was coined, tribal peoples developed highly effective measures for maintaining the richness of their environment. They have sophisticated codes of conservation to stop overhunting and preserve biodiversity.
Yet it’s often wrongly claimed their lands are wildernesses even though tribal communities have been dependent on, and managed them for millennia. Even the world’s most famous “wildernesses” – including Yellowstone, the Amazon and the Serengeti – are the ancestral homelands of millions of tribespeople, who nurtured and protected their environments for many generations.
Tribal peoples are being illegally evicted from these lands in the name of “conservation.” Now they’re accused of “poaching” because they hunt their food. And they face arrest and beatings, torture and death, while fee-paying big game hunters are encouraged. Their lives and lands are being destroyed by the conservation industry, tourism and big business.
In Cameroon, Baka tribesmen who dare to enter the forest they have been excluded from are terrorized by anti-poaching squads funded by WWF. In India, tribal villages are expelled from tiger reserves at the same time as the forest department encourages rocketing tourism.
The big conservation organizations are complicit. They fund militarized conservation which leads to the persecution of innocent hunter-gatherers, they partner with the big businesses that steal tribal lands, and they drive the projects that result in illegal evictions.
Survival is fighting these abuses. We know tribal peoples are better at looking after their environment than anyone else.
It’s time for a new type of conservation, one that puts tribal peoples’ rights at its heart, and that recognizes they are the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world.
This would be the most significant leap forward for genuine environmental protection in history.
For tribes, for nature, and for all humanity’s future.
It’s time to change conservation
For tribes. For nature. For all our humanity.
Conservation must accept the growing proof that tribal peoples are better at looking after their environment than anyone else. The huge sums spent on conservation must be given to the cheapest solution – upholding tribal peoples’ land rights.


Tribal peoples need voices, like yours, to join their own. They need you to help them. Together we can stop the conservation con.
How you can help
Here’s what we need you to do:
Baka “Pygmy” tribespeople face arrest and beatings, torture and death at the hands of park guards who accuse them of “poaching” because they hunt to feed their families. The guards are funded by WWF, which also plays a key role in the theft of Baka lands.
This abuse is despite the Baka being the experts on their land. They have taboos against overhunting and if they weren’t excluded could be the eyes and the ears of the forest. One Baka man told Survival, “We know when and where the poachers are, but no one will listen to us.”
Tell WWF to stop funding the abuse of the Baka and their neighbors
They beat my pregnant wife with a machete. Baka, Cameroon
The lives of tribal peoples across India are being destroyed by tiger conservation. Communities which have coexisted with tigers for generations are threatened and bullied into giving up their land. This is illegal, and thousands of families are being left in abject squalor.
The Baiga, who have been evicted in the name of tiger conservation, don’t hunt tigers, but consider them their “little brother”. Some have set up their own conservation projects, setting out rules for their own community and outsiders to protect their forest and its biodiversity.
Take a stand against evictions from tiger reserves
If we can’t stay, the jungle won’t survive. Baiga, India
Bushmen tribes were evicted from Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve in the name of “conservation.” Survival helped the Bushmen to go home, but a new threat means that they are once again forced to return to the eviction camps they call “places of death.”
The Bushmen know best how to protect their environment and the animals that live in it. As one Bushmen said, “If you go to my area, you’ll find animals, which shows that I know how to take care of them. In other areas, there are no animals”.
Boycott Botswana until the government respects the Bushmen’s rights
Wherever there are Bushmen, there is game. Why? Because we know how to take care of animals. Bushman, Botswana
Related news
- Charles writes open letter to William and Harry ahead of key wildlife conference
October 10, 2018 - “Botswana elephant massacre” story now proven false
September 21, 2018 - BBC report of 87 elephant poaching deaths wrong, say leading conservation scientists
September 13, 2018 - India: Tribes threatened by conservation plan historic protest
March 15, 2018 - “350% rise in Karnataka forest fires was preventable” say local tribespeople
March 14, 2018
October 10, 2018
September 21, 2018
September 13, 2018
March 15, 2018
March 14, 2018
In depth
Questions about the campaign? Our FAQ tells you all you need to know about Survival’s work to change conservation.
For the science behind our claims, check out our report: Parks Need Peoples
Survival’s Director is writing a series of exposés about the conservation industry:
Wildlife Conservation Efforts Are Violating Tribal Peoples’ Rights
When Conservationists Militarize, Who’s the Real Poacher?
The Colonial Origins of Conservation: The Disturbing History Behind US National Parks
Survival staff have also tackled these issues in these articles:
India’s indigenous evictions – the dark side of the Jungle Book
Conservation and the rights of tribal people must go hand in hand
We’ve also prepared some handy briefs on some of the hottest conservation topics: conservation refugees; community mapping; guardians; hunting; poaching; protected areas; shifting cultivation; the Bennett Code
What the experts say
BBC, “Unnatural Histories”: Yellowstone, Serengeti, the Amazon
Canal+: “Le monde selon Nouvelles Frontières (et les autres)”
Mac Chapin: “A Challenge to Conservationists”
Michael Connellan: “The human cost of India’s tiger conservation policy”
Mark Dowie: “What’s A Park For?”; “Keep Off the Grasslands: Mark Dowie on Conservation Refugees”
Rosaleen Duffy: “Are we hearing a ‘call to arms’ from wildlife conservationists?”; “Forget the war for biodiversity, it’s just war.”
Jeffrey Goldberg: “The Hunted: Did American Conservationists in Africa Go Too Far?”
Wilfried Huismann: “PandaLeaks: The Dark Side of the WWF”
Jedediah Purdy: “Environmentalism’s Racist History”
John Vidal: “How the Kalahari bushmen and other tribespeople are being evicted to make way for ‘wilderness’”; “WWF International accused of ‘selling its soul’ to corporations”