This archive report was first published on 18 November 2021.
Published on November 18, 2021, a devastating report by the US-based Oakland Institute has exposed the dark side of Kenya's wildlife conservancies, implicating organizations that include Britain's Royals in the eviction, torture, and murder of local Indigenous people.
The report, titled 'Stealth Game: 'community' conservancies devastate land and lives in northern Kenya,' investigates the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), an organization of 39 'community conservancies' that cover nearly 8% of Kenya. These conservancies were formerly pastoralist communities' grazing areas, but they have been turned into 'conservation areas' controlled by NRT, from which Indigenous people are violently excluded.
The NRT was initiated by Ian Craig, whose family owned a 62,000-acre cattle ranch, which was transformed into the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. Lewa was where Prince William and Kate Middleton became engaged, and Craig remains the NRT's 'Chief of Conservation and Development.'
The report details shocking revelations about the operation of these conservancies, including the dispossession of Indigenous and other local people of their land, multiple allegations of abuse and torture, the use of militarized security forces, and the massive takeover of land by a few wealthy individuals.
Survival International's Executive Director Caroline Pearce said, 'Kenya's
