BY GRACE MACHA IN ARUSHA
Activists want the media to play a role in tackling the increasingly worrying land conflicts across the country.
They claim oftentimes the root causes of land rows have skipped the attention of the policy makers due to low profile of the media.
"There are lots of such conflicts in courts of law. Land denial is a challenge for the country", said Rosemary Mwakitwange, one of the local activists.
She said land has been seen to have value for investors but not the indigenous population, noting that this must change.
She was speaking during a Webinar organized by the Arusha-based Civic and Legal Aid Organization (Cilao) on land rights.
Ms Mwakitwange stressed that land rights narrative should feature well in the proposed new Constitution, the country's mother law.
She alleged that despite interventions by the government, some livestock keepers evicted from the Usangu plains in Mbarali district, Mbeya region were victimized.
She challenged the media to sensitize the public on their land rights and relevant institutions on how to handle the emerging land crisis.
These have to include educating villagers on the existing land laws that are in conflict with nature conservation and other uses.
Mr. Navaya Ndaskoi, a programme officer with Pingos Forum, defended the traditional livestock herders, saying they should not be associated with land degradation.
He cited the pastoralists in Ngorongoro district, Arusha region, some of whom are being relocated to Msomera village in Handeni district, Tanga region.
"These herders do not destroy the environment. On the contrary,they always have what looks like a symbiotic relationship with nature", he said.
Mr. Ndaskoi appealed to the government to ensure that revenues generated from tourism benefited the local communities in Ngorongoro.
"There is a high level of poverty in Ngorongoro. Billions of shillings are collected every month from tourists but the natives are poor", he said.
Joseph Ole Shangai, an advocate, attributed some land disputes to conflicting laws in conservation.
He said although the national parks have laws which are categorical on their status, this was not the case with other protected areas.
These include the game and forest reserves and wildlife management areas (WMAs), among others
He alleged there were times the boundaries of some national parks and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) had been altered without the consent of the Parliament.
Mr. Shangai said the widely reported land crisis in the NCA and in some areas inhabited by the nomadic herders may have been fueled by establishment of WMAs in village lands.
He wondered why the local media and the legal aid agencies have generally kept quiet on alleged violations during relocation of the herders.
Another speaker Mr. Yohane Gwangway said during the Webinar that the media must champion "public interests" in land rows.
Other speakers opposed the narrative that the traditional livestock keepers were in conflict with the conservation projects.
"We are not against conservation. In fact, some of our people have been injured or killed by wild animals", said one of them.
However, he claimed that those injured by the animals and relatives of the victims are hardly compensated.
Cilao director Mr. Odero Odero said the Webinar intended to get "the truth" of land conflicts currently raging in various parts of the country.
"At the end of the day, we will suggest ways to tackle them without necessarily being in a collision course with the government", he pointed out.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment