Decolonize UNESCO
UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites are meant to protect the world’s most treasured places. But in many cases, these sites have become zones of abuse—where Indigenous Peoples are beaten, displaced, and even killed in the name of “conservation.”
This model, known as Fortress Conservation, treats Indigenous Peoples as threats to nature—rather than its original stewards. And it’s happening with the backing, funding, or silence of powerful institutions like UNESCO.
This is not protection. This is dispossession.
We are calling on UNESCO to de-list any World Heritage Site where human rights abuses against Indigenous Peoples are occurring. No place should be celebrated as a global treasure while hiding violence behind its gates.
Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania
Ngorongoro, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979, was intended as a shared space for wildlife and the semi-nomadic Maasai. But for decades, conservation efforts—backed by UNESCO—have turned the area into a zone of violence, eviction, and exclusion.
Maasai have faced forced evictions, arbitrary arrests, beatings, and the militarization of their lands.
Healthcare and education services have been cut, leading to preventable deaths, including that of a pregnant woman and HIV-positive babies denied treatment.
In 2019, UNESCO threatened to revoke the site’s status unless the Maasai population was reduced.
The Maasai were never consulted before the site’s UNESCO designation and excluded from a 2024 UN fact-finding mission
Despite the area being recognized for its “cultural heritage,” Maasai land rights and stewardship have been ignored. UNESCO has prioritized tourist-friendly conservation over Indigenous survival.
Kaziranga National Park, india
Kaziranga, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985, is known less for its wildlife than for its human rights abuses. The park—home to Indigenous communities like the Mising, Karbi, and “tea tribes”—has been the site of extrajudicial killings, torture, and harassment carried out by armed guards under a de facto “shoot-on-sight” policy.
144 people were killed by park guards between 1990 and 2016—including a disabled Indigenous man.
In 2016, Akash Orang, a 7-year-old boy, was shot in both legs by guards on his way to a shop. He is permanently maimed. “The forest guards suddenly shot me,” he told the BBC.
A 2014 park manual stated: “Kill the unwanted.”
UNESCO’s 2011 report praised immunity for park guards who use lethal force as a way to “boost staff morale.”
Indigenous Peoples are more effective at preserving biodiversity
The data is clear. Not only is “Fortress Conservation” morally abhorrent, but it is also a flawed conservation method. 80% of the world’s biodiversity is found on Indigenous lands. Legally recognized Indigenous forests experience less deforestation. Traditional ecological knowledge is our best hope at preserving Earth’s biodiversity, therefore Indigenous Peoples must be placed at the forefront of all conservation efforts.