- This event has passed.
Decolonize Conservation Protest
April 15, 2023 @ 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
From Survival International:
NO MORE GREEN LIES,
DECOLONIZE
CONSERVATION!
How would you feel if you were evicted from your home? If
your friends and family were tortured and killed when they try
to feed themselves? That’s the reality for Indigenous Peoples
in Protected Areas in many parts of the world.
Big conservation NGOs are deeply embroiled in these
appalling human rights abuses. They lobby for the creation of
Protected Areas, fund operations, train guards, provide
equipment, and very often even manage parks where
Indigenous and other local people are subjected to evictions,
violence and abuse. They have known about this for years,
even decades, yet have failed to take responsibility
or put a stop to it. Enough is enough!
Join our protest to put a stop to this and Decolonize Conservation!
WHY SHOULD YOU JOIN OUR PROTEST IN NEW YORK CITY?
We will be protesting outside the Bronx Zoo, which is run by the Wildlife
Conservation Society (WCS), one of the world’s oldest conservation
organizations, with a long history of complicity in human rights abuses in
the name of conservation.
WCS shamelessly pushes false solutions for biodiversity protection (like
more Protected Areas), while promoting a conservation system that
results in the eviction, rape, torture and killing of Indigenous people.
The WCS is a key funder of Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. In Kahuzi-Biega, park rangers, together
with the Congolese military, have committed a series of horrific atrocities
against the Indigenous Batwa people whose lands were stolen to create
the park. WCS, along with the US and German governments, have turned
a blind eye to abuses which included killings, gang-rapes and the burning
alive of Batwa children.
Kahuzi-Biega is just one example of horrific abuses in Protected Areas
across Africa and Asia. Join our protest to demand that WCS, and other
conservation organizations and funders, stop supporting colonial
conservation which is devastating the lives of Indigenous people.
More details here