Dear friends,
We are elders of the Maasai from Tanzania, one of Africa’s oldest tribes. The government has just announced that it plans to kick thousands of our families off our lands so that wealthy tourists can use them to shoot lions and leopards. The evictions are to begin immediately.
Within hours, Tanzania's President Kikwete could start evicting tens of thousands of the Maasai from our land so hunters can come and kill leopards and lions. Last time Avaaz raised the alarm, the President shelved the plan. Global pressure can stop him again. Click to help us urgently:
Last year, when word first leaked about this plan, almost one million Avaaz members rallied to our aid. Your attention and the storm it created forced the government to deny the plan, and set them back months. But the President has waited for international attention to die down, and now he’s revived his plan to take our land. We need your help again, urgently.
President Kikwete may not care about us, but he has shown he’ll respond to global media and public pressure -- to all of you! We may only have hours. Please stand with us to protect our land, our people and our world’s most majestic animals, and tell everyone before it is too late. This is our last hope:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_the_maasai_loc/?bMqVueb&v=23744
Our people have lived off the land in Tanzania and Kenya for centuries. Our communities respect our fellow animals and protect and preserve the delicate ecosystem. But the government has for years sought to profit by giving rich princes and kings from the Middle East access to our land to kill. In 2009, when they tried to clear our land to make way for these hunting sprees, we resisted, and hundreds of us were arrested and beaten. Last year, rich princes shot at birds in trees from helicopters. This killing goes against everything in our culture.
Now the government has announced it will clear a huge swath of our land to make way for what it claims will be a wildlife corridor, but many suspect it’s just a ruse to give a foreign hunting corporation and the rich tourists it caters to easier access to shoot at majestic animals. The government claims this new arrangement is some sort of accommodation, but its effect on our people’s way of life will be disastrous. There are thousands of us who could have our lives uprooted, losing our homes, the land on which our animals graze, or both.
President Kikwete knows this deal would be controversial with Tanzania’s tourists - a critical source of national income - and does not want a big PR disaster. If we can urgently generate even more global outrage than we did before, and get the media writing about it, we know it can make him think twice. Stand with us now to call on Kikwete to stop the sell off:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_the_maasai_loc/?bMqVueb&v=23744
This land grab could spell the end for the Maasai in this part of Tanzania and many of our community have said they would rather die than be forced from their homes. On behalf of our people and the animals who graze in these lands, please stand with us to change the mind of our President.
With hope and determination,
The Maasai elders of Ngorongoro District
SOURCESThe Guardian: Maasai fury as plan to lure Arabian Gulf tourists threatens their ancestral land
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/30/maasai-game-hunting-tanzaniaallAfrica: Land Grab Could Spell 'The End of the Maasai'
http://allafrica.com/stories/201303290873.htmlIPP Media: Maasai villagers frustrate efforts to vacate for Ortelo
http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/?l=52669The Guardian: Tanzania denies plan to evict Maasai for royal hunting ground
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/15/tanzania-evict-maasai-uae-royalsThe Guardian: “Tourism is a curse to us”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/06/masai-tribesman-tanzania-tourismNew Internationalist Magazine: “Hunted down”
http://www.newint.org/columns/currents/2009/12/01/tanzania/Society for Threatened People: Briefing on the eviction of the Loliondo Maasai
http://lib.ohchr.org/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/session12/TZ/STP-SocietyThreatenedPeople-eng.pdfFEMACT: Report by 16 human rights investigators & media on violence in Loliondo
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/58956/print
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Monday, April 8, 2013
They’re kicking us off our land to hunt lions #petition
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Presidents coincidences
Monday, February 25, 2013
Papa Bear....Gulp! Man defends himself from a Massive Grizzly
Papa Bear....Gulp!
How about a short hike in Alaska ??,,( I don't think so! )
These pictures are of a man who works for the US Forest Service in Alaska and his trophy bear ( killed in self defense )
He was out deer hunting last week when a large grizzly bear charged him from about 50 yards away. The guy emptied his 7 mm Magnum semi-automatic rifle into the bear and it dropped a few feet from him. The big bear was still alive so he reloaded and shot it several times in the head.
The bear was just over one thousand six hundred pounds. It stood 12' 6" high at the shoulder,14 FEET to the top of his head. It's the largest grizzly bear ever recorded in the world.
Of course, the Alaska Fish and Wildlife Commission did not let him keep it as a trophy, but the bear will be stuffed and mounted, and placed on display at the Anchorage airport to remind tourists of the risks involved when in the wild.
Based on the contents of the bear's stomach, the Fish and Wildlife Commission established the bear had killed at least two humans in the past 72 hours including a missing hiker.
The US Forest Service, backtracking from where the bear had originated, found the hiker's 38-caliber pistol emptied. Not far from the pistol was the remains of the hiker. The other body has not been found.
Although the hiker fired six shots and managed to hit the grizzly with four shots ( the Service ultimately found four 38 caliber slugs along with twelve 7 mm slugs inside the bear's dead body ), it only wounded the bear and probably angered it immensely.
The bear killed the hiker an estimated two days prior to the bear's own death by the gun of the Forest Service worker.
Think about this:
If you are an average size man; you would be level with the bear's navel when he stood upright. The bear would look you in the eye when it walked on all fours! To give additional perspective, consider that this particular bear, standing on its hind legs, could walk up to an average single story house and look over the roof, or walk up to a two story house and look in the bedroom windows.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Only In Australia... People actually still use Photoshop…
I'll stick with my -30C winters....lol *S*
- An interesting place to live; never a dull moment !
Sunday, February 10, 2013
too cute (those cute little animal pics with captions)
I LIKE THE CAPTIONS ALMOST AS MUCH AS THE PICTURES!
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