Ahead of Volkswagen AG’s Annual General Meeting on 18 June 2026, human rights and environmental organisations are stepping up the pressure on the company: FIAN, Survival International, Misereor, GfbV and the Umbrella Organisation of Critical Shareholders are calling on Volkswagen to halt the “Longido and Monduli Rangelands Carbon Project” in Tanzania, which it is funding. The organisations accuse Volkswagen of seeking to improve its carbon footprint at the expense of the rights of indigenous Maasai communities.
At the Annual General Meeting, representatives of the organisations, together with a Maasai representative, will report on the specific local impacts of the project. They will highlight the threat of restrictions on traditional pastoralism and the failure to take women and young people into account. “The internationally binding principle of free, prior and informed consent has been violated on multiple occasions. Community members were neither adequately informed nor effectively involved in decision-making processes. Furthermore, advance payments to village councils constitute a problematic form of influence,” said Roman Herre of FIAN.
What the organisations have repeatedly criticised since early 2025 is now also reflected in the number of complaints: in April 2026 alone, more than 100 complaints were received against the project. “What local people are reporting is clear: the affected communities do not want to be subject to the rules of a German corporation for decades – on their land, which they have been farming for generations,” criticises Linda Poppe of Survival International.
From the organisations’ perspective, offset projects do not address the root causes of the climate crisis, but merely shift the consequences. “Corporations that are among the biggest contributors to the climate crisis are buying their way out of their responsibility to consistently reduce emissions within their own companies – at the expense of local communities in the Global South, who have contributed hardly at all to the climate crisis,” says Selina Wiredu of Misereor.
“Volkswagen is at a crossroads. The company must demonstrate that climate protection and human rights go hand in hand,” explains Laura Mahler from the GfbV. “Projects that restrict Indigenous peoples’ control over their land without their consent and jeopardise their self-determination have no place in a credible sustainability strategy.”
Background: The “Longido and Monduli Rangelands Carbon Project” is part of a Volkswagen-funded joint venture with the German company ClimatePartner. Carbon credits are to be generated across nearly one million hectares. Local Maasai representatives report increasing pressure on Maasai communities to sign contracts that could severely restrict their traditional grazing practices for 40 years.
The press release is supported by the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV), the FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN), Misereor as a member of the MISA network (Maasai International Solidarity Alliance), Survival International and the Umbrella Organisation of Critical Shareholders.
