A year ago last week the world rallied against poaching when “Cecil the Lion”, a well-known African lion living in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, was slaughtered by an American dentist who reportedly paid $50,000 to a professional hunter for the privilege. The incident came nearly a year after another high profile poaching tragedy captured the world’s attention when Green Mile Safari, an outfit owned by one of the United Arab Emirate’s’ richest men, had a video leaked showing terrible mistreatment of animals in Tanzania.
Due to the international outcry the video inspired, Green Mile lost its access to Tanzanian wildlife preserves. It was a huge victory for conservationists and activists. Unfortunately, just last week, Tanzania decided to overturn that decision, under the cover of darkness, and is in the process of allowing Green Mile back into Tanzania. The Humane Society International and the Humane Society of the United States sent a letter pleading with Tanzania’s President John P. Magufuli to reverse its decision or face a global backlash.
Last Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that Green Mile Safari’s land grant, “is a window into the shadowy world of big game hunting in a country.”
Friday, a group of 12 activists gathered in front of the Tanzanian embassy in DC to protest Green Mile Safari's hunting concession. The rally included homemade signs, a large elephant head, chants and short speeches. We engaged passersby with information about our campaign, including copies of the letter from the Humane Society and the Washington Post article written by Kevin Sieff. You can see highlights at twitter.com/StopGreenMile
We chanted "Stop Green Mile", "No More Cecils", and made short speeches about the importance of protecting wildlife and stopping corruption in Tanzania.
We saw officials inside of the embassy taking pictures of us through the locked glass doors. We tried to pass the Washington Post article and Humane Society Letters through to one of the men but he refused. At the end of our rally, someone leaving the building said an official would be coming down to meet us. We knocked on the doors and we were allowed to enter into the lobby.
The woman we spoke with did not have any information, she came down to tell us the correct contact was in a meeting outside of the building. We asked for the name of that person and she said she didn't know it. After chatting about the importance of stopping Green Mile, we exchanged contact information. Our group quietly departed from the lobby.
As the last people were leaving the front of the embassy, one of our cell phones rang. A man who only said he was with the embassy said we were creating a disturbance. We told him we had already left and in no way created a disturbance. He had a lot of questions about who we were with.
We told him we weren’t going anywhere, and that he should send a message to his government that we want Green Mile OUT of Tanzania.
We’re not giving up. This week we’re going to take our message over to the embassy of the United Arab Emirates. We need to send a strong message to poachers that we will NOT sit back and allow them to endanger wildlife, that they will not be allowed to operate in the shadows anymore.