The Human Rights Dimensions of Conservation and Climate Change Initiatives in Coastal Tanzania: Examples of Villagers’ Successful Struggles for Their Rights

Abstract

Abuse of human rights in conservation initiatives, such as REDD+, wildlife conservation, etc., has raised concern in many project reviews. Few studies have, however, examined the human rights dimensions of conservation and climate change. In this chapter the authors address this gap by showing how outsiders, with the assistance of the state, attempted to control areas historically governed by local residents in the name of conservation and climate change policy initiatives in the Mafia Island and Rufiji Delta, Southern Tanzania. The interventions were implemented with the old-fashioned premise that the villagers were destructive and extravagant resource users. The authors also try to illustrate how the international linkages to worldwide conservation narratives and to development aid by rich countries promoting climate measures in poor countries to try to absolve their carbon emissions revealed the ways in which such vested interests attempted “to misuse their money, power, and influence.”