The issue of conservation refugees across India are well reported[4][5] Christine MacDonald's Green, Inc. quotes a tribal leader that "white men" told them to leave their homes in the forest because the land was not protected; they were forced into another village (which was already occupied by another group) outside the forest, and had "no choice, because they told them that they [would] be beaten and killed".
After living in conservation camps under restrictions limiting centuries-old cultural practices, community member Kwokwo Barume observed that "we are heading toward extinction".
[8]: 70 The restrictions include bans on cultivation, hunting or gathering, and sacred sites and burial grounds are off-limits; all are essential to the people's daily life.
Limitations such as these help lead toward the extinction of hunter-gatherer groups around the world to make way for government-sanctioned game reserves and ecotourism.
The nomadic Maasai, who have over the past thirty years lost most of their grazing range to conservation projects throughout eastern Africa, hadn’t always felt that way.
'"[2] Dowie also writes that Sayyaad Saltani, the elected chair of the Council of Elders of the Qashqai Confederation in Iran, gave a speech to the World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa, in October 2003.
[8]: 35 Violence and retaliation have followed park creation due to resentment of land restriction and displacement or blocked access to resources, causing shortages.
India has nearly five hundred protected areas, rich in resources and primarily surrounded by agricultural land and poor villages: "Inevitably they invade the reserves and come into conflict with authorities.
[10]: 19 In the Naganhde National Park in South India, wildlife guards allegedly killed a poacher; the local people retaliating by burning 20 square kilometres (7.7 sq mi) of forest: "In India, resentment by local people to National Parks legislation and enforcement agencies has caused increasing problems".
[10]: 18 African conservation refugees (about 14 million, according to some sources) have long been displaced due to transnational efforts to preserve select biomes believed to be historically and environmentally crucial.
Although the residential grounds of millions of native people have existed for hundreds of years, conservation efforts encroach on these areas to preserve the biological diversity of flora and fauna.
[12] Conservation efforts which appropriate an indigenous people's land remove them from a familiar social environment to unknown quarters and customs; traditional values, such as "songs, rituals, ... and stories" may be entirely lost in a little over a generation.
Indigenous peoples are forced to the boundaries of the new parks, stripped of their homes and status, and sometimes made to live in "shabby squatter camps ... without running water or sanitation".
[2] To protect the rights of indigenous people and others displaced as conservation refugees, the Fifth World Parks Congress held a session to discuss the problem.
The session acknowledged the connection between poverty and displacement, altering land rights and their hazardous effects on culture and future generations.
Young women facing a shrinking pool of potential husbands sell community essentials such as charcoal, traditional medicines, milk from borrowed goats, or, saddest of all, themselves".
[14] Because of the decline in resources and their displacement to non-arable lands, many pastoralists have resorted to bushmeat for subsistence and trade; this threatens the already-declining population of apes, and facilitates the spread of HIV and Ebola virus disease.
The Ogiek have been described as a peaceful people who primarily cultivate honey bees, but will grow beans and potatoes if needed.
This displacement made many Ogiek homeless, poor and ill; their life expectancy declined from sixty to forty-six years.
Ecologists and hydrologists now agree with the Ogiek that Kenya's forests (which are beginning to decline) are the main suppliers of water for the nation and, if not preserved, will result is mass starvation.
This trend is reflected in neighboring countries; Liberia claims over 120,000 conservation refugees, and Senegal has 65,000 people displaced from its nine protected areas.
[15] In Guinea's Ziami Strict Nature Reserve (part of UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme),[16] sections of land in the southeastern panhandle have been cordoned off to preserve the growing forest and savanna which was the traditional home of the Toma people (Fairhead).
[20] The special game licenses did not replenish the dwindling animal populations; many officials believed that they were being abused, and the government began to restrict their distribution and again consider relocation.
The San founded an NGO, the First People of the Kalahari (FPK), in 1992 to advocate for land rights, social acceptance and self-determination.
BINGOs (big international non-governmental organizations) may be controversial due to their partnership "with multinational corporations—particularly in the businesses of gas and oil, pharmaceuticals, and mining—that are directly involved in pillaging and destroying forest areas owned by indigenous peoples" (Chapin 2004).
According to anthropologist Jim Igoe, "Ironically, there is growing evidence that national parks themselves are contributing to the very problems that advocates of community conservation are trying to solve...