LINDI, Oct. 25 -- Former Tanzanian lawmaker and environmental activist Riziki Saidi Lulida still remembers the first time she saw the towering replica of a dinosaur from her homeland (not in Africa, but in a Berlin museum).

“It was taken from Lindi, from our soil,” she said. “They carried it piece by piece for more than a hundred kilometers, and some of our people died doing it. But no one in Lindi has ever benefited.”

More than a century after German colonial explorers unearthed the Tendeguru fossils (among the worlds richest dinosaur discoveries) debate is rising in Tanzania over restitution, profit-sharing and recognition for the communities that bore the cost.

Lulida, who served in parliaments natural resour...