Activities

A Law Student's Educational Sojourn in Africa
In the spring of 2001 Peter Kim, a thrid-year law student at the Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, USA, spent a five month externship with LEAT in Dar es Salaam. Upon returning to the U.S. Peter wrote fondly about his Tanzanian experience and his high regard for the public interest advocates he worked with.

Biodiversity Programmes
The project "Conservation and Development Opportunities from the Sustainable Use of Biological Diversity in the Communal Lands of Southern Africa" (CODEOSUB) is focused on promoting successes in Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) projects within southern Africa through building the capacity of communities and NGOs who are involved. LEAT has been in the forefront in promoting Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) in Tanzania.

Bulyanhulu Gold Mine
LEAT represents a group of small-scale miners that were forcibly evicted from their mines in 1996 to make way for development by the Kahama Mining Corporation, Ltd., a subsidiary of a Canadian company. LEAT has called on the Tanzanian government to allow an independent international investigation of alleged human rights abuses during the eviction.

Branches

LEAT Mwanza Branch
LEAT has been in the forefront to prevent urban pollution. Measures that LEAT has been engaged on include awareness raising, publications and litigation. The campaign to prevent urban pollution is carried in both LEAT headquarters and the Mwanza branch. LEAT Mwanza Branch was established in June 2001 by a generous support from the Blacksmith Institute.

Press Releases

Mar-26-2007
LEAT files Amicus Brief in Tanzanian Failed Water Privatization Case Pending Before ICSID Tribunal

Feb-02-2007
LEAT, LHRC, TGNP, CIEL and IISD allowed to file written submission in Biwater v. United Republic of Tanzania ICSID arbitral dspute

Jan-10-2004
LEAT Releases 2002-2003 Biennial Report

Nov-24-2003
Human Rights Commission Issues Injunction Order Against Tarime Gold Mine and Four Others

Oct-06-2003
Save Mererani Miners, Avert Another Bulyanhulu

Jul-29-2003
LEAT Submits Complaint to Human Rights Commission Against Afrika Mashariki Gold Mine, Tarime

May-17-2002
Tanzanian Attorneys Face Charges of Sedition

Apr-02-2002
International NGO Fact-Finding Mission on Bulyanhulu Barred from Visiting Bulyanhulu Communities

Jan-09-2002
Response to the National Post's "Barrick's African tribulations"

Nov-26-2001
Tanzanian Police Raid Offices of Lawyers' Environmental Action Team

Nov-21-2001
New assessment of controversial Commission highlights strategies to resolve contentious development projects

LEAT publishes Research Reports and Policy Briefs online and in print as a public service after extensive research into critical environmental issues facing Tanzania and East Africa.

Recent additions:
Regulating the Hunting Industry in Tanzania: Reflections on the Legislative, Institutional and Policy-Making Frameworks Feb-04-2003 This work critically analyzes the operations of the hunting industry of Tanzania in the light of existing institutions, the law and policy-making frameworks. The study is essentially a follow up to one of LEAT's Policy Briefs that focused on the granting of hunting blocks in Tanzania as one aspect of the hunting industry. This study provides a comparatively more holistic approach in analyzing the operation, activities and features of the hunting industry of Tanzania from a legislative and policy-making perspective.

Robbing the Poor to Give to the Rich: Human Rights Abuses and Impoverishment at the MIGA-Backed Bulyanhulu Gold Mine, Tanzania Jan-13-2003 LEAT's submission to the World Bank Extractive Industries Review argues that "the Bulyanhulu Gold Mine is a premier example of all that is wrong with the World Bank Group’s support of the corporate mining investment in Africa and elsewhere in the world."

[ more publications ]

This section is under development. LEAT is currently mobilizing resources and will work in collaboration with Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide to create an online resource of Tanzanian laws relating to the environment.

Draft legislation:
DRAFT Tanzania Environmental Protection Act Aug-14-2003 Lawyers’ Environmental Action Team (LEAT) and the Environmental Coalition of Civil Society Organizations (ECO) for the last six years have been campaigning for the enactment of a framework environmental legislation in Tanzania. This is because Tanzania is the only East African country without a framework environmental law despite of its unrivalled natural resources, breathtaking attractions and a population of more than 35 Million people. LEAT and ECO have drafted the Elements of a Bill For Tanzanian Environmental Protection Act for the purposes of stimulating wider public discussion as to how the Tanzanian environmental legislation should look like.

Visitors are encouraged to read this draft and submit their comments to ECO and LEAT.

LEAT carries out policy research, advocacy, and selected public interest litigation. Its membership largely includes lawyers concerned with environmental management and democratic governance in Tanzania.

[ more information about LEAT ]