The dark side of conservation tourism in Uganda

[frogwoman]

The dark side of Uganda's gorilla tourism industry - BBC News

Anyone seen this article? describes how conservation has been used to justify racism and forcing people off their land, it's worth a read, very grim stuff tbh.

 

[Idris2002]

These sorts of stories are commonplace all over Africa, alas.

 

[frogwoman]

I heard some dodgy stuff about WWF as well.

 

[Idris2002]

I heard some dodgy stuff about WWF as well.

I never trusted that Hulk Hogan - sure his eyes are too close together.


Sorry.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

These sorts of stories are commonplace all over Africa, alas.

Yep. There's a land grab going on all over Africa, with peoples being displaced. Not all of it being done to preserve animals. Some of it is for development and converting more land to farming. I saw a study recently that said that Africa has 40% of the "unused farm land" in the world. I put that in quotes because one person's unused farm land is another person's home or open range habitat.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

A little OT, but I've had some issues with some environmentalist groups in the past. Some of them are big corporations that started out with good intentions and then got caught up in the usual corporate self-interest that for-profit corporations engage in. Case in point:

According to the Times, the Nature Conservancy has earned millions from gas and oil drilling on its Texas property, even if this specific well didn’t turn out to yield many profits. More so than the money, the revelation raises questions about the group’s commitment to some basic environmental objectives: The group, according to a spokesperson, “would prefer to get out of the oil-and-gas business entirely,” but has not, and in the process has potentially caused harm to an endangered species it was purportedly working to protect, and which have since disappeared from the site.

The country’s largest environmental group is profiting from oil drilling

I'm not saying that environmentalist groups are bad. That would be silly considering by background in working with them, but, they need to be at least as responsible in their approach as they expect others to be. Large groups always have the dilemma around money come up when they reach a certain size. More money translates into more ability to counter oil companies, but often has baggage attached that can pull them away from their core mission.

 

[JimW]

Recall that the Ik people, who Colin Turnbull wrote about in his controversial book Mountain People forty odd years ago, were forced off their land by the creation of a national park, as has been said sadly this is not a new or rare occurrence.

 

[Idris2002]

Recall that the Ik people, who Colin Turnbull wrote about in his controversial book Mountain People forty odd years ago, were forced off their land by the creation of a national park, as has been said sadly this is not a new or rare occurrence.

According to people who met him in Kampala after he got back from Ik country (which is in Uganda, and this is when Amin was in power), he suffered a severe nervous breakdown as a result of what he'd seen there.

 

[purves grundy]

Increasingly common the world over. Even my mate from Nagaland was complaining about it the other day. Forms a big part of Suvival's work these days. Good paper on this 'green grabbing' here.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03066150.2012.671770