Newsroom

The recent eviction debacle involving the Maasai community in the Loliondo division in Tanzania’s northern Ngorongoro District has elevated Indigenous peoples' concerns about losing their ancestral lands under the ‘30 by 30’ plan in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

"In Tanzania, Maasai people are being evicted from their ancestral lands in the name of conservation and economic need - something a new global nature accord cannot allow." - Jennifer Corpuz and Lucy Mulenkei

Negotiators from almost 200 countries will begin crunch biodiversity talks in Nairobi during the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5.2), working towards a much-delayed global pact to protect nature from the damage wrought by human activities.

Michael Painter, Nia Tero’s Managing Director of Programs, warns against living in an “alternative reality” and makes a case for supporting Indigenous knowledge in the fight for environmental justice.

"No matter how often you move or shift course, you don’t leave anything behind. Honoring our past and our ancestors is an Indigenous thing to do. Connecting all that past to the future is as well." - Michael Painter, Nia Tero's Managing Director of Programs

"I use linocut and mixed-media techniques to develop my own ways of telling stories in the complex layers that they exist in, as well as to demonstrate the ways that we are connected to the Land and to each other...I aim to create pieces that embody Indigenous life, joy, resilience, and relationship to Land." - Eileen Jimenez, Nia Tero Pacific Northwest Art Fellow.