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Environment



WORLD HERITAGE DAY 2024: SURVIVAL ACCUSES UNESCO OF BEING COMPLICIT IN ILLEGAL
EVICTION, ABUSE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

Survival report lists six World Heritage Sites which it claims are on stolen
Indigenous land; Kaziranga in Assam on list

Zebra, wildebeest and flamingos in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania. Photo:
iStock
Rajat Ghai


Published on: 
18 Apr 2024, 5:20 am
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Survival International, which campaigns for the rights of indigenous and/or
tribal peoples and uncontacted peoples, accused UNESCO of being complicit in the
illegal eviction and abuse of Indigenous people in a new report launched on
World Heritage Day 2024.

Many UNESCO World Heritage Sites are, in fact, located on what were once
indigenous lands, it said. Even now, repeated cases of torture, rape, and
killings of indigenous people are taking place in and around World Heritage
Sites, it added.

The report listed six World Heritage Sites that occupy stolen Indigenous land.
Three are in Africa and three in Asia.

They include Ngorongoro Conservation Area (Tanzania), Kahuzi-Biega National Park
(Democratic Republic of the Congo), Odzala-Kokoua National Park (Republic of
Congo), Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex (Thailand), Kaziranga National Park (India)
and Chitwan National Park (Nepal). All six sites are the scene of serious and
continuing conservation-related rights abuses, said Survival.

The world-famous Ngorongoro Crater has become “the scene of intimidating
security operations and the denial of basic services, as the (Tanzanian)
government presses ahead with plans to evict thousands of Maasai people from
lands where they have lived for generations.”

Similarly, the report claimed that the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the DRC had
been the site of rape, violent attacks and an all-out campaign since 2019 to
purge the area of indigenous Batwa people from their ancestral lands.


READ

 * Kenyan authorities brutally evict Ogiek during King Charles’s state visit
 * African court orders Kenya to pay $1.3 million as reparations to indigenous
   Ogiek people
 * Activists at Berlin conference call out German, Western complicity in funding
   Fortress Conservation
 * Fortress Conservation: Tension in Tanzania’s Loliondo as troops move in to
   evict Maasai to make way for game reserve
 * The majority settled community views nomadic and pastoral Maasai in Tanzania
   as a threat: Joseph Oleshangay

It also levelled serious charges against UNESCO on Kaziranga in Assam, globally
famous for its one-horned rhinos:

> Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve in Northeast India has been a UNESCO
> WHS since 1985. Since that time, it has become infamous for brutal
> extra-judicial killings, torture and arbitrary arrests, with park guards
> shooting on sight with impunity. It is home to the Mising and Karbi people, as
> well as other Indigenous peoples brought to the area to work on the tea
> estates, collectively known locally as the “tea tribes”. Between 1990 and
> 2016, park guards killed 144 people in the park, including a severely disabled
> Indigenous man.

Far from expressing alarm at the extrajudicial killings in Kaziranga, the UNESCO
World Heritage Center, in its 2011 State of Conservation report, praised a
government notification which gives forest officers immunity from prosecution if
they use firearms in the course of their duty, as a “significant step to prevent
poaching and boost staff morale”, alleged Survival.

And while the number of extrajudicial killings had reduced after the matter came
to light in 2016, the indigenous people living around the park are still
harassed and banned from entering their ancestral lands, according to the
report.

Survival called on UNESCO to remove World Heritage status from any site where
human rights atrocities are occurring.

 “UNESCO has played a key role in giving legitimacy to many of the most
notorious Protected Areas in Africa and Asia, and it’s largely ignored the
well-documented atrocities being committed on its watch,” Survival’s Director
Caroline Pearce said.

She added that what the UNESCO called “Natural World Heritage Sites”, are very
often the stolen ancestral lands of Indigenous peoples, who are being kept out
by force, intimidation and terror.

“Its complicity has gone beyond silence to encompass the active support of
governments, and actions, that violate Indigenous rights. It must remove World
Heritage Status from any such site where abuses are taking place,” she
concluded.

World
indigenous people
UNESCO World Heritage Site
United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
fortress conservation
UNESCO
Survival International
world heritage day 2024
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