Last week , President Obama came to my country , Tanzania . President Kikwete and our people received him with great pride , but it is unlikely Obama heard anything about our government 's plan to give a great chunk of land that has been the Maasai tribe 's home for millennia , to a hunting company from the United Arab Emirates ( UAE ) . The hunters want this land to kill our lions and leopards and this deal will take away 40 % of our grasslands and forested mountains that we call home . It threatens the wildlife and the Maasai 's very existence . We want Obama and the international community to know our story and help stop our eviction . Read also : Maasai fight government , game hunters for lands . These attempts to clean us out of our old homelands have been happening for decades . The British moved us 50 years ago from what is now the Serengeti park and subsequent governments have consistently restricted our grazing rights . A large amount of land next to our community near the Serengeti National Park has already been handed to the hunters from the UAE . We often see Arab royalty arriving in their jumbo jets and then driving around in jeeps shooting anything they see moving and they keep wanting more . The government uses our faces on tourism posters and brochures for Tanzania , yet President Kikwete has said that our way of life is a thing of the past and we should live in the modern world . But without our land and our traditions , what are we ? Most people in Loliondo raise cows and goats to pay for food and education for our children . Without grazing lands , many Maasai men have felt pressured to move to the city to take jobs as security guards . The women are left behind to raise our children and grandchildren and despite their hardship they are fighting to preserve our way of life . Read more : Maasai boy scares off lions with flashy invention . This new threat of such a large-scale land clearance has gathered Tanzania 's Maasai like never before . Thousands of our men , women and children have traveled for days to meet government officials to state our case . Three hundred Maasai women marched on the capital Dodoma to protest , and in May , all of our community elders camped outside the Prime Minister 's office in the capital for three weeks , demanding the UAE deal be abandoned . We are sure our brothers and sisters across the world can help . After we started an international campaign with Avaaz more than 1.7 million people around the world joined our cause . Today we are at home in our lands but fear that tens of thousands of villagers in our community could soon be evicted . A commitment from Kikwete can easily save us from the terrible fate that has befallen so many great tribes of the world . We know that the battle for our lands will not be easy , but as long as the government knows that the world is watching we will be safe . With that kind of attention , we have hope that our ancient way of life on our traditional lands will yet survive in the 21st century .
Tanzanian government threatening to evict Maasai from traditional land . Maasai tribes in Loliondo campaigning to stay on land . The campaign has been supported by more than 1.7 million people worldwide .