Kenya: Landmark court ruling delivers devastating blow to flagship carbon offset project

The Samburu are one of the Indigenous peoples affected by NRT’s Northern Kenya Grassland Carbon Project. © Fiore Longo / Survival International

A keenly-watched legal ruling in Kenya has delivered a huge blow to a flagship carbon offset project used by Meta, Netflix, British Airways and other multinational corporations, which has long been under fire from Indigenous activists. 

The ruling, in a case brought by 165 members of affected communities, affirms that two of the biggest conservancies set up by the controversial Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) have been established unconstitutionally and have no basis in law. 

The court has also ordered that the heavily-armed NRT rangers – who have been accused of repeated, serious human rights abuses against the area’s Indigenous people – must leave these conservancies.

One of the two conservancies involved in the case, known as Biliqo Bulesa, contributes about a fifth of the carbon credits involved in the highly contentious NRT project to sell carbon offsets to Western corporations.

The ruling likely applies to around half the other conservancies involved in the carbon project too, as they are in the same legal position, even though they were not part of the lawsuit. This means that the whole project, from which NRT has made many millions of dollars already (the exact amount is not known as the organisation does not publish financial accounts), is now at risk.

Watch Borana leader Abdullahi Hajj Gonjobe denounce the devastating impact the NRT’s conservancies have on their pastoralist way of life.

© Pastoralist Media Initiative

A protest against NRT in 2021. Community members chant 'Hatutaki NRT' – 'We don't want NRT here.'

The case was first filed in 2021, but judgment has only recently been delivered by the Isiolo Environment and Land Court. The legal issue at the heart of this case was identified in Survival International’s “Blood carbon” report, which also disputed the very basis of NRT’s carbon project: its claim that by controlling the activities of Indigenous pastoralists’ livestock, it increases the area’s vegetation and thus the amount of carbon stored in the soil. 

The ruling is also the latest in a series of setbacks to the credibility of Verra, the main body used to verify carbon credit projects. Even though some of the participating conservancies in the NRT’s project lacked a clear legal basis and therefore could not ‘own’ or ‘transfer’ carbon credits to the NRT, the project was still validated and approved by Verra, and went through two verifications in their system. Complaints by Survival International prompted a review of the project in 2023, which also failed to address the problem. 

Caroline Pearce, Director of Survival International, said today: “The judgement confirms what the communities have been saying for years – that they were not properly consulted about the creation of the conservancies, which have undermined their land rights. The NRT’s Western donors, like the EU, France and USAID, must now stop funding the organization, as they’ve been funding an operation which is now ruled to have been illegal.

“This ruling poses some very awkward questions for both the NRT and Verra, as it shows that there is no legal basis for at least a significant portion of the carbon project.  The carbon credits issued by it should now be considered invalid.” 

“Unfortunately, this NRT disaster is far from an isolated problem. Too many of these carbon offset schemes follow the same outdated model as traditional “fortress” conservation – claiming to ‘protect’ land while trampling over the rights of the Indigenous owners of it, and making handsome profits in the process. 

“That NRT has also cut legal corners while doing so should not be surprising, and was pointed out by Survival years ago. It’s long past time for Verra to finally conduct a proper review and scrap this project once and for all.”

Notes to Editors:

• The NRT groups together 45 “community conservancies” in northern Kenya, many of which are the lands of thousands of Indigenous Borana, Samburu and Rendille people. This represents more than ten percent of the entire area of Kenya.
  The case was filed at Isiolo High Court in September 2021. Judgment was delivered by the Isiolo Environment and Land Court on 24 January 2025.
• The lawsuit accused NRT of establishing and running conservancies on unregistered community land, “without participation or involvement of the community,” including not obtaining free prior and informed consent before delineating and annexing community lands for private wildlife conservation. The complaint reads, in part, “(NRT), with the help of the Rangers and the local administration, continue to use intimidation and coercion as well as threats upon the community leaders where the community leaders attempt to oppose any of their plans.”
• The case was brought by communities from two conservancies, Biliqo Bulesa Conservancy (which is in the NRT’s carbon project area and where 20% of the project’s carbon credits were generated) and Cherab Conservancy, which isn’t.
• These two conservancies, the court has ruled, were illegally established. Permanent injunctions have been issued banning NRT and others from entering the area or operating their rangers or other agents there.
• The government has to get on with registering the community lands under the Community Land Act, and has to cancel the licences for NRT to operate in the respective areas.
• The NRT’s carbon offset project is reportedly the largest soil carbon capture project in the world.