For Land & Life: The Oakland Institute Podcast

Maasai communities have acted as the ancestral guardians of the Great Rift Valley in East Africa for centuries. Today, they are under attack as the Tanzanian government wages a brutal campaign to forcibly evict them from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) to boost tourism revenues. Despite mounting pressures to force them from their homes, Maasai have recently waged a historic protest mobilization in defense of their rights to land and life.

On today's episode we speak with Joseph Oleshangay, a Maasai human rights lawyer on the frontlines of this struggle. Based in Arusha and working with the Legal and Human Rights Centre, Joseph was the recipient of the 2023 Weimar Human Rights Prize for his ongoing efforts to protect the rights of the Maasai people in Ngorongoro and Loliondo. As one of the leading voices working to protect Maasai land rights, he has faced retaliation and surveillance from the Tanzanian government. We are extremely grateful to have him as our guest today and recognize his courage for continuing to speak out on behalf of impacted Maasai communities. 

Tune in to learn more about the crippling livelihood restrictions these Indigenous communities face as the government prioritizes the interests of safari tourists over their well being. We also discuss the complicity of international conservation NGOs and donor governments and how listeners can support their struggle. 

Learn more: https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/country/tanzania

After decades of being exploited for natural resources, Papua New Guinea is cracking down. Our guest today is Eddie Tanago, the Campaign Manager at ACT NOW, a PNG-based organization on the forefront against illegal logging and other destructive extractive industries. He discusses the recent historic fine imposed on a logging firm in PNG for tax evasion and the path forward to a truly people-centered development strategy.

For more see: https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/country/papua-new-guinea

Summit Carbon Solutions intends to build the world’s largest carbon capture and storage pipeline across the Midwestern US, despite fierce and sustained citizen opposition.

While media coverage so far has focused on the opposition white landowners in the path of the proposed route have to the pipelines – this project represents the latest instance of environmental racism as Indigenous, Black, Brown and Migrant communities will face some of the greatest risks if this project goes through.

Today's episode features several leading activists fighting against this and other proposed carbon pipelines in Iowa – Sikowis Christine Nobiss, Founder & Executive Director of Great Plains Action Society (GPAS), Mahmud Fitil, Frontlines Action Director GPAS ; Jaylen Cavil Advocacy Director for the Des Moines Black Liberation Movement; Alejandro Murgia-Ortiz Community Organizer with Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice.

The full report is available at: https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/midwest-carbon-express-summit-carbon-solutions

As US-based holding company African Agriculture Inc. (AAGR) has filed an initial public offering to fund a large-scale agribusiness project in the northern region of Saint-Louis in Senegal, local communities are demanding the company return their land stolen over a decade ago.

Today's episode features an interview with Ardo Sow from the Collectif pour la Défense du Ndiaël, who have been steadfastly campaigning for the return of their ancestral land since 2012. 

Learn more: https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/communities-senegal-demand-return-land-aagr-senhuile

https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/company/senhuile

https://grain.org/article/entries/4815-who-is-behind-senhuile-senethanol

Music credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S25uEldJffU

The world is currently in the midst of a food price crisis, with prices of staple foods and agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides skyrocketing on global markets. As usual, the most vulnerable are being hit the hardest by these rising prices.

The good news is that more and more farmers are breaking free from the reliance on expensive and polluting pesticides and fertilizers to feed themselves and their communities.

In Malawi, Luwayo and Grace Biswick run the Permaculture Paradise Institute. By using agroecological practices, they have transformed their land to produce an abundant diversity of crops year-round. They have also made their livelihoods resilient to climate shocks and market volatility, while saving on agricultural inputs.

Hear their story and how they are helping scale up agroecology in a country in urgent need of a new path forward on the latest episode of For Land & Life – The Oakland Institute Podcast.

To learn more see:

https://www.facebook.com/permaculturetraining/

This episode explores the devastating impact privatized, neocolonial wildlife conservation and safari tourism have had on Indigenous pastoral communities, specifically in Northern Kenya. 

Since its founding in 2004, the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) has set up 43 "community" conservancies on over 42,000 square kilometers of land in Northern and Coastal Kenya – nearly 8 percent of the country's total land area. Although terms like “participatory,” “community driven,” and “local empowerment” are extensively used by NRT, this episode amplifies the voices of pastoralist communities who have been dispossessed of their ancestral lands, through corruption, cooptation, and sometimes through intimidation and violence, to create wildlife conservancies for conservation dollars. Guests include:

• Anuradha Mittal, Oakland Institute Executive Director and author of the Stealth Game report

Host: Andy Currier

Report available: https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/stealth-game-community-conservancies-devastate-northern-kenya

If you’ve participated in any mobilizations over the past decade, chances are you’ve seen the work of today’s guest, Oakland Institute Senior Fellow David Solnit.

A climate justice, global justice, anti-war, arts, and direct action organizer, David is also an author, a puppeteer, and a trainer. He was a key organizer in the shutdowns of the WTO in Seattle in 1999 and in San Francisco the day after Iraq was invaded in 2003. Today is he deeply involved in climate action protests. 

In this episode, David reflects on decades spent on the front lines of some of the most important mobilizations and shares his thoughts on the role art can play in resistance movements.

To see David's work firsthand and stay up to date on his current organizing see: https://www.facebook.com/david.solnit

The second episode in a two part series exploring resistance to the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit and mapping out sustainable, bottom-up approaches to food sovereignty. Featuring Elizabeth Mpofu (La Via Campesina), Alejandro Argumedo (Swift Foundation) & Anuradha Mittal (Oakland Institute)

Intro: Chivy Sok

Host: Andy Currier

For more see: //www.oaklandinstitute.org/food-systems-summit

The first episode in a two part series exploring resistance to the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit and mapping out sustainable, bottom-up approaches to food sovereignty. Featuring Nnimmo Bassey (Health of Mother Earth Foundation) and Kristen Lyons (Professor of Environment and Development Sociology, U Queensland). 

Intro: Chivy Sok

Host: Andy Currier

For more see: https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/food-systems-summit

Oakland Institute Senior Fellow, journalist and photographer David Bacon discusses the history of exploitation of the H-2A worker program and how it creates a race to the bottom for all farmworkers. 

Will the Biden administration protect the profits of growers and expand the H-2A program or will it stand with farmworkers who labor in the fields to keep our country fed?

Report: https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/biden-administration-end-slavery-conditions-h2a-guest-worker-program