From 24 February to 2 March 2025
Help us protest this violence. Mobilize with thousands of others in our movement and take part in Act for Survival:
Send an email to the major funders of colonial conservation asking them to stop funding projects that steal Indigenous peoples' lands and destroy their lives. Share this poster with your community to spread our message: print it and put it in our neighborhood, send it to your friends and family, and share it on your social media. We will be holding a vigil for the victims of conservation in London and New York at the headquarters of major funders of conservation abuses.
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Why are we protesting?
Indigenous people across Africa and Asia are being harassed, tortured, and evicted in the name of conservation, with support from major conservation organizations and governments in the Global North.
Fortress conservation continues to destroy Indigenous lives and lands. Indigenous communities are resisting, but they need urgent support to stop the funding and promotion of this racist and colonial model of conservation.
Stories of resistance
This week we’ll share four heart-breaking true stories of Karani, Raj, Ella and Billy. As you read them, be mindful that some stories will include graphic details of violence.
Karani: "Leave our Maasailand. Stop the greed"
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Karani Olenkaiseri was just a boy when his people were forced from their homeland in the Serengeti plains. The Maasai had long grazed their cattle in these rolling grasslands, but in the 1950s the British authorities evicted them, having turned much of the Serengeti into a national park.
Karani and his family found themselves dumped on unsuitable land, where their cattle – the heart of Maasai culture and the source of their livelihood – weakened and starved.
Karani is old now, and over the course of his life he’s seen many more of his people evicted, often violently.
In 1992, the Tanzanian government handed over part of the Maasai's land to a trophy-hunting firm linked to the United Arab Emirates’ royal family.
“We were told that the company shall rule this land, whether we like it or not,” Karani says.
Then in 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2022 there were further operations to force the Maasai from their lands. Security forces burned down Maasai homes and destroyed their belongings. Some who tried to save their property were pushed into the flames, others were arrested or even shot.
Karani told us that all this while, the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) – a German conservation organization – supported the government’s campaign against the Maasai.
The FZS had first got involved under its long-time director Bernhard Grzimek, a former member of the Nazi party who was instrumental in the scheme to “conserve” the Serengeti. Like many outsiders before and since, he looked upon an Indigenous homeland as a “wilderness” in need of “saving” by Europeans.
Karani now lives in Loliondo, where thousands of Maasai people have either been evicted from their land, or have the threat of it hanging over them. Survival researchers met him in 2022, shortly before a Maasai protest against the evictions was met with a volley of gunfire from the police.
“Leave our Maasai land,” Karani urges FZS. “Stop the greed.”
Raj Kumar Chepang: "[His] biggest crime was that he could not see his family starving"
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In July 2020 Raj Kumar Chepang, a young man with a family to feed, ventured into the Chitwan National Park in Nepal. Raj Kumar knew the lush forests well – many of his people, the Chepang, had lived there before being evicted from in and around the park.
With a group of friends, Raj Kumar searched the streams for fish, edible ferns and Ghongi, a snail that the Chepang say helps prevent malaria. But then they were discovered by an army unit patrolling the park.
The soldiers attacked Raj Kumar and his friends. According to his friends, the soldiers stamped on their necks and backs with their boots, and beat them repeatedly with sticks. They tortured and abused them for hours.
They were eventually released, and told to return the next day to pay a fine, but Raj Kumar’s friends say that he “could not even walk … and [we] carried him home.” A few days later he died.
“Raj Kumar’s biggest crime was that he could not see his family starving and went to search for food in the jungle,” his mother said.
After a long battle by his family for justice, Chiran Kumar Budha, a sergeant in the Nepali army, was sentenced to life in prison for Raj Kumar’s killing.
But the Chepang and other Indigenous people in the area still live with persecution and violence, as militarized conservation projects operate on or near the lands they rely on for their livelihoods. Western conservation organizations like WWF and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) continued to provide support for Chitwan National Park, despite this and many other atrocities.
The ZSL, which still works in the area, has not spoken out against the murder of Raj Kumar, while WWF lobbied for the perpetrators of another violent killing in Nepal to be released.
Ella: “I’m not how I used to be, I don’t feel my body like before”
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The Baka have lived in the Congo basin for thousands of years, but the forest is now a patchwork of logging concessions and Protected Areas, and the Baka have been pushed out.
Many of these national parks are managed by multi-million dollar conservation corporations. One of these, African Parks, manages Odzala-Kokoua National Park, an area where the Baka used to live, hunt and gather forest produce.
The Baka people say that violence and abuses have dramatically increased since African Parks started managing the park, and armed rangers now keep the Baka out of their forest by force.
One evening a few years ago, while Ella’s husband was away, an African Parks ranger came to their house. He pulled Ella outside and told her she had to accompany him to the rangers’ base. On the way to the base, as Ella carried her two-month-old baby against her chest, he ordered her to lie on the ground, and raped her.
When her husband came back in the morning, he and Ella went to the base to complain to the rangers’ chief. The guards handcuffed her husband and beat him. He remained handcuffed at the base all day, while Ella was sent back to the village.
“I’m not like I used to be, my body doesn’t feel the same,” Ella told us. She has received a few hundred dollars’ compensation – more was promised, but never came. The ranger who had raped her was arrested and imprisoned for a few months before being released. He was dismissed by African Parks.
Billy: "If they find me they'll kill me"
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Before young Pholachi Rakchongcharoen, known as ‘Billy,’ went missing, he warned his wife Menor not to come looking for him.
“The people involved in this aren't happy with me. They say that if they find me they'll kill me. If I do disappear, they'll probably have killed me.”
Billy came from a family of activists in Thailand. His grandfather, Ko-ee, was well-known in his Indigenous Karen community for standing up against the atrocities committed against them in the name of conservation.
Large areas of Karen land had been taken and turned into the Kaeng Krachan National Park. Before Ko-ee passed away at the age of 107, Billy was helping him gather evidence of the destruction of Karen houses and crops in the name of conservation. He knew this was dangerous work – the people running and patrolling the parks weren’t happy with it.
After Billy disappeared the chief of the Park, which now occupies the community’s land, admitted that his rangers had detained and interrogated him. The rangers alleged he had been found with wild honey, but claimed to have then released him. But neither Menor nor any of Billy’s friends ever heard from him again, and five years later, burnt fragments of his skull were found in a rusty oil drum inside the park. Whoever was responsible for Billy’s murder had tried to conceal the crime.
When we met with Menor in 2023, Billy’s case was being tried in the Thai courts. Four suspects, including the park chief, Chaiwat, had been charged with murder and other offences. All four were acquitted, though Chaiwat was found guilty of dereliction of duty for failing to write an official report on Billy’s detention.
Félix: "The land belongs to us, and we will protect it with our lives"
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Félix Díaz, a leader of the Qom people in Argentina, has been at the forefront of the struggle to defend his community’s rights and lands, particularly in relation to the creation of the Pilcomayo National Park. The Qom, who have lived in the region for generations, see their land as integral to their identity and culture. However, the park, established in 1951, was created without their consent, leading to a longstanding conflict over land rights.
For Díaz and the Qom, the establishment of the park is a continuation of the colonial practices that have historically marginalized Indigenous peoples. "Our people have been here for centuries, and we are not asking for anything new; we are just asking for our rights to be respected," Díaz said, emphasizing that the park’s creation was a violation of their rights to their ancestral lands. The Qom rely on the land for their way of life, including hunting, fishing, and agriculture, and they argue that any restriction of access threatens their survival.
Díaz’s activism has come at a personal cost. He and his family have faced numerous death threats, a clear attempt to silence their resistance. Despite this, he continues to lead protests and legal actions, demanding recognition of their land rights. "We have been threatened, but we will not stop fighting. The land belongs to us, and we will protect it with our lives," he stated.
The Qom’s struggle reflects broader Indigenous movements in Argentina, challenging a legacy of exclusion from decision-making processes about their lands and culture. Díaz’s fight against the Pilcomayo National Park is not just about land—it is a fight for justice, recognition, and the survival of their culture in the face of persistent colonialism.
