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These are Kenya's northern rangelands: dry, dusty, and incredibly vast. For centuries, nomadic herders have migrated seasonally here in search of fresh pastures.
Big Tech's carbon offset projects in Kenya threaten nomadic herders by restricting grazing lands and raising legal and ethical concerns.
Key Takeaways
- Carbon offset projects can have significant social and environmental impacts on indigenous communities.
- Transparency and genuine community consent are critical for the legitimacy of land-based carbon offset initiatives.
- Big Tech companies' reliance on distant carbon offsets raises ethical questions about accountability and local effects.
- Verification processes for carbon credits need rigorous oversight to ensure accuracy and fairness.
- Legal frameworks and indigenous rights must be respected to avoid exploitation and conflict.
Summary
- Kenya's northern rangelands are being used for carbon offset projects funded by Western tech companies like Netflix and Meta.
- The project uses planned rotational grazing to sequester CO2 by controlling livestock movement and pasture use.
- The Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) manages the project, consolidating indigenous lands into conservancies.
- Carbon offsets are sold globally, with Netflix and Meta purchasing significant amounts to offset their emissions.
- Local herders face restricted grazing access due to fences and conservancy boundaries, causing hardship and conflicts.
- Rangers armed with weapons enforce grazing restrictions, limiting journalist and researcher access.
- Satellite imagery and investigations revealed discrepancies in the project's reported CO2 reductions and vegetation growth.
- Verra suspended and later reinstated certification after an 8-month probe citing methodological and legal issues.
- Community consent is disputed; many nomadic residents were unaware of the project or its implications.
- A lawsuit challenges the legality of conservancies and carbon credit sales, alleging lack of proper community participation.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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But today, the land has become ground zero in the scramble for a new and lucrative natural resource...
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One that is tearing communities apart. Carbon offsets have become big business here. Western tech companies, like Netflix and Meta, have invested millions in a project aimed at sucking CO2 from the atmosphere by controlling where and when livestock can graze.
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Now, fences and weapons are proliferating across this fragile landscape. "You can be kidnapped, or even killed." Why is this green solution being met with so much opposition?
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And why are Kenya's carbon dealers so keen on keeping journalists and researchers away? But why are Netflix and Meta investing here in the first place?
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Because they emit a LOT of CO2. And they want to make up for that far, far away from their headquarters.
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By buying carbon offsets all around the world. Including, here in Kenya. The Northern Kenya Rangelands Carbon project says it's the largest of its kind on the planet, covering an area the size of New Jersey or Slovenia.
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The scheme claims to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and bind it to the soil...
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through a system known as 'planned rotational grazing.' The idea is that keeping livestock off of certain swathes of pasture will allow grass to grow and store more carbon from the atmosphere.
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It's meant to reduce overgrazing and give grasslands time to recover. The project promises to sequester the equivalent annual carbon output of ten million cars in its first three decades - and was launched in 2012 by the Northern Rangelands Trust -
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or NRT. Co-founded by the descendant of an old colonial ranching family, the organization has been consolidating indigenous land into 'conservancies' for more than twenty years.
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It's a form of land-use that combines tourism, livestock production, and wildlife conservation. Fourteen of these conservancies are taking part in the carbon project under the NRT's banner.
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The offsets produced by managing these livestock migrations have been sold the world over. Netflix and Meta alone had purchased more than a quarter million tons of the project's carbon offsets by 2022.
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Rangeland coordinators like Francis Bahati are crucial to the cash flow. They oversee how many animals are allowed onto a given plot of community land over the course of a grazing season and make reports to calculate the amount of CO2 this helps absorb.
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"We are participating in the Northern Rangeland Carbon Project as a conservancy and the type of carbon - we call it soil-carbon.
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By using rotational grazing - coordinated grazing - that grass also stores CO2 from the atmosphere and is also a source of revenue for the community." That revenue goes to paying the salaries of conservancy staff like Francis, as well as to helping to fund community projects
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like wells and schools. The NRT and coordinators like Francis insist the process is participatory and transparent.
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"We have a board of directors, and they are elected by the community. We go to them and tell: 'This is the right time to start to think about grazing planning.' 'Where do you want us to take our livestock?'
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They discuss and agree and they give us a list. So the conservancy now supports.
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We are not restricting livestock. We try to support the elders to do traditional grazing, but in a modern way or in a way that is sustainable for them." So theoretically, big companies in the Global North get to take their emissions off their books,
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and local people in the Global South benefit from the money invested. Community control - with no coerced restrictions on nomads' movements.
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Sounds pretty great! But the reality on the ground is not so simple. Lemako Charo has been traveling for two days with his camels across the wilderness.
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He says grazing boundaries imposed by the carbon project's implementers have forced him to come north in search of pasture.
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"Life in this place is hard. The grass has been scarce and is only getting scarcer.
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We are forced to migrate almost up to their fenceline. It’s such a close distance.
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The grass is just there and our cows are here. Yet our cattle die of drought and the grass is just there beyond the fence.
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It’s not right at all." We wanted to see these fences for ourselves. So the next day, our team sets out for Sera Conservancy, where herders tell us a well-fortified barrier is blocking pastoralists from the pasture that their animals crave.
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We are blocked by the same rangers that the herders warned us about. Though they're not employed by any government security service, they do carry weapons.
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They question our team and invite us to tour their conservancy headquarters, but tell us we are not allowed to go any further.
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So we hike along their perimeter to a distant hilltop instead, looking for a place to launch our drone.
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It reveals exactly what the herders spoke of: a long metal fence stretching for miles across the expansive wilderness.
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We asked the NRT. They said this fence is an anti-poaching measure aimed at rhino conservation.
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But maps we filmed inside the conservancy's offices show that land within the fence is included in the carbon project's grazing blocks.
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And analysis of satellite imaging shows that vegetation inside the fenceline is indeed greener and more lush than the comparatively parched landscape without.
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This imaging technique is called the Normalized Vegetative Difference Index. In 2023, the same tool revealed that much of the carbon project's self-reported CO2 reductions were not matching up with vegetation changes on the ground.
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Concerns like these led to Verra, the world's largest verifier of voluntary carbon offsets, suspending its certification of the project's credits.
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The certification was later reissued... but not before an 8-month investigation probed issues of methodological shortcomings and serious legal questions.
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In order to be considered valid for commercial use, Verra requires land-based carbon offset projects to obtain the free, prior, and informed consent of residents.
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The NRT says they held meetings with community members to explain their plans, like those shown in these promotional videos, and posted brochures on noticeboards.
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But residents that we spoke to complained that low literacy rates, high mobility, and limited access to mass media among nomads rendered many of these efforts moot.
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"For herders, to understand the carbon credits, photosynthesis, all that story - it's not easy for them.
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But we are trying to make it simple in their local language that they can understand." Many herders we interviewed did not know that carbon offsets were being generated on their land.
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Those who did said they only heard about the project nine years after it had already begun, when proceeds started being generated for the conservancies.
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Verra's 2023 review of the project found insufficient evidence of how the project was communicated to communities.
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So, if indigenous residents were not asked for their permission to extract and market carbon offsets, whose consent was given?
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The Northern Rangelands Trust says their authority to sell carbon credits comes from the conservancies themselves - entities that they helped establish across millions of acres of indigenous lands.
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But an ongoing lawsuit disputes this, citing Kenya's Community Lands Act and alleging that the NRT's establishment of conservancies on this land was unconstitutional.
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"Most of these purported agreements were not subjected to public participation." Human rights lawyer Innocent Makaka has spent years as an advocate at Kenya's High Court.
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He is lead counsel on the case. His clients allege that the conservancies NRT is using to produce the carbon offsets were established without consent.
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"We can call them private entities that have come to community land, and they have established conservancies and other activities in the community land at the expense of the...
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But we have not seen anything filed that indicated that indeed, these community members, our clients, were involved.
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Yet these conservancies are established in their community limiting their land use one way or another.
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And that's why we even went to court, because it's our opinion that there is no legal basis." We approached the NRT about the case, but they declined to comment.
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While the legality of the conservancies is being debated in court, the control they exert over the landscapes where they have been established through force of arms, is very much a reality.
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Solomon Lempatu does not know what a carbon credit is. He tells us he's never heard of them.
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But he says his father was shot dead for grazing the family's animals in the wrong place and that he watched it happen.
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"I didn't know that it was wrong to take the cattle there. I went knowing nothing about the area being off limits and took the cattle inside.
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For me, I thought as long as I remain with the cattle it would be alright, because I was still young.
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When my father came, he found the cattle there. As he was running taking them out of the unwanted side of the boundary.
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They arrived. And before even asking why he took them in, he was simply shot.
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That is how he died." His mother Noolkilelu has had to grapple with the consequences ever since.
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"The cattle we had perished without anyone to help us. The children were young at that time.
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Imagine, there is grass there but they won’t allow the cattle to eat it. Wouldn't it be nice if, when there is grass, cattle are allowed to graze?" For this family, armed enforcement of the NRT's grazing regime has changed their lives forever.
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Allegations of lethal force against herders is nothing new. Human rights organizations and researchers have documented dozens of extrajudicial killings of pastoralists in conservation areas throughout Kenya's North, including on territory managed by the NRT.
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"Many people have been killed because basically you are arming people without regulation of government.
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These armed rangers, for example, prevent community members from grazing in certain areas. And we have people who have to, you know, leave their cultural sites, their graves, their cultural practices, you know, and have to move to other areas.
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So this brings human rights issues." We want to understand how the rangers do their job first-hand.
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And are invited by the staff and elders of Melako Conservancy to visit their ranger-station and meet the people tasked with enforcing grazing rules.
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But as we head to the filming location, our team learns that the NRT's appointed managers have other ideas.
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"You know, these days, we have been given a regulation We can’t allow you to come and take pictures.
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That’s difficult. The chairman doesn't have authority to allow you to come and take pictures…" "So the chairman doesn’t have authority?" "Listen..." "Yes." "...if a visitor comes to my office, "I must be given an email from NRT." "From the NRT?"
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"Okay, thank you very much." "So imagine that. Imagine that, they're saying that the conservancy is community-controlled.
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"Yes." "That the board of the conservancy - the Council of Elders - are elected; that they are the ones in charge of this place and in charge of the rangeland management.
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We have direct permission from Mzee Dokhole, who is the chairman of the board. He's the one who supposedly has the authority from the community to govern the affairs of the Conservancy.
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And although he's encouraging us to go and document this, we're being told by the NRT that the NRT needs to grant permission before any photos can be taken, before any access can be given.
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This is a contradiction. This is a contradiction." "So I'm wondering..." "...what do they have to hide?" "Well yeah." "What do they have to hide?" Minutes later, we get another call.
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"Who is this?" "DCI?" "Department of Criminal Investigations?" "Hello, good morning." "Morning. I'm the Sub-County Criminal Investigations Officer.
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I'm in charge of investigations." "Yes?" "Yeah, somebody has raised a complaint." "Tell me." "The manager of the conservancy is complaining.
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Are you from Deutsche Welle?" "Yes sir." "Okay, he's saying you might expose some confidential matters outside." "Is that right?" "So we received a call from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
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This is despite the fact that we've come with the invitation of the chairman of the Board of Elders.
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This tells me that what we've been told about who is in charge of this land and the management of its rangelands is not matching up with what we're experiencing on the ground.
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With the NRT's appointed conservancy staff unwilling to speak with us, we decide to talk with the community's elected elders instead.
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Wilfred Longlei was chair of the Melako Conservancy board from 2013-2016, when the carbon project began.
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He and current board member Singida Lekuton want to show us what has become of one of the conservancy's projects since Wilfred's tenure.
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This was once a luxury destination for international tourists, keen for an African safari experience.
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Though this construction predates the arrival of carbon project funds, at least six similar lodges have been built or renovated using carbon credit proceeds...
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...including one that overlooks the grazing boundary where Solomon saw his father shot. Today this lodge in Melako is a burnt out husk, consumed by a mysterious fire in 2022.
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Just as we are setting up to receive his testimony, Wilfred's phone rings. "Listen to me now, those people need to leave!
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Tell them to get out of there." "What is the issue?" "What are you guys discussing there?" "Why should they leave?
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I am the one who brought them here. Wait listen–" "Did you hear the way he threatened me?
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He's threatening me!" "Threatening you for what?" "He’s saying: ‘Why have I taken visitors here without a letter from the NRT?’" After the phone call, Wilfred insists the fire was an accident.
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Rangers from a nearby camp quickly appear and we are told to stop our filming.
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"They were asking me, 'Who told you to take them here?' And I told him, 'How did you know that we're here?'" By the time we return to the nearby settlement of Merille, night has fallen.
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Local youth tell us that someone has been by to record the color and license plate number of our news team's vehicle.
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One of the youngsters passes us a handwritten note, before disappearing back into the crowd.
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The bandas' burning, they say, was no accident. One by one, under cover of darkness, they come forward to speak.
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"That lodge was burnt on purpose. It was no accident. They were burnt by human hands.
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I am asking those contributors who are giving money for this carbon not to send any money here again." "Our leaders are misusing that money.
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Our fathers, mothers, elders, our illiterate people - nobody knows about carbon. They've heard about carbon but they don't know what that is." "I want you to change my voice and hide my face.
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So our leaders will not know who I am. They can 'look after' you. They might take you into court, or even you can be kidnapped, or even killed." Back in Nairobi, Innocent's 165 plaintiffs allege that the only written agreement,
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the NRT has shown between themselves and the conservancies they helped establish, was concluded nearly a decade after carbon credits were already being produced and sold.
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Abdirahman Osman Dida is one of the plaintiffs. Today, he's traveled over 500km from his home in the arid northern rangelands to the capital Nairobi.
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Together with dozens of other residents of NRT conservancies, he wants to personally deliver a petition to Kenya's parliament, demanding that their rights as the constitutionally recognized owners of community lands be upheld.
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“Isiolo, don’t you sleep! Don’t sleep, don’t sleep! Struggle, struggle!" Their demands find sympathetic ears, especially among lawmakers representing pastoralist areas.
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"NRT tries to behave as if they are the communities, which they are not the community.
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The communities are the land owners, the camel owners. These are the owners of the land.
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The communities are not getting benefit from these ones. They are being raped. They are being cheated." Tubi and others from the Pastoralist Parliamentary group point to a lack of transparency and participatory decision making in the way carbon offsets are generated and sold.
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"That is theft. Because if you don't inform the communities and the communities are not aware of what you are doing, then that is stealing.
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I am talking to Netflix and even Facebook. Some of these guys, please stop being used by people who are thieves.
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Those guys are not the genuine ones. They are con people. Let them not be used to rape the community of their property." With all this strife and popular dissent around the carbon project, it's easy to lose sight of how it is benefiting community members.
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After all, sales of the offsets have brought in a lot of money, some of which has gone to fund student scholarships, waterpoints and tourist infrastructure.
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The numbers are opaque, - the NRT has never published audited annual sales accounts - but here's what we do know: The project claims it can generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues over the course of 30 years.
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Market-rate estimates suggest that somewhere between 19 and 43 million euros worth of credits have already been sold.
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For a place as economically marginal as Kenya's remote North, that is some serious money!
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But very little of it is actually getting to the communities. According to project documents, up to 30% of this revenue is siphoned off right at the start by a US-based for-profit company called Native, in the form of 'marketing fees'.
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Verra - the US company who validated, reviewed and later reverified the offsets - also takes a cut.
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After that: consultancy fees for soil scientists and a five percent cut for Kenya's county governments.
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From here the remaining funds go to the NRT itself, which retains 40% for what it calls 'operations costs', like hiring guards, building fences, or managing megafauna wildlife for upmarket tourists.
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What remains is divided equally among the 14 participating conservancies... ...to spend on community works like schools, sanitation facilities, or food in times of drought.
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But here's the kicker: Even from this meager portion, not a penny of carbon revenues is distributed directly to individual herders, households or settlements.
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Instead, it's retained in a common fund that conservancies must submit bids to, to fund specific projects.
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The only contract governing this revenue sharing structure was signed in 2021, years after many offsets had already been sold.
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It gives enormous discretion to the NRT "to award funds to conservancies" based on their "standing" with the organization.
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What's more, conservancies are forbidden to discuss these terms publicly. Critics say this strips communities of their financial autonomy and puts control over the money earned from the sale of their resources in the hands of third parties.
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But one thing is for certain. The global trade in carbon offsets is not going away any time soon.
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UN member states at COP29 recently agreed to form a new global marketplace for carbon credits.
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And in Kenya, a legislative bill regulating the sale and export of carbon offsets is currently making its way through parliament.
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So what's the right way to do these carbon credit deals? For many, it's about getting rid of middlemen and putting profits in the hands of the people who own the resources.
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"They should treat us, you know, as we are an equal partnership. But at the moment, whatever they are giving us, it's as if it is a favor.
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But no, we are the owners of the land." "My message to the big investors: When they want to get carbon credits, let them go to the community and see it through the national government and the counties.
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So they should go to the community themselves and benefit the community directly rather than going through NRT and others." "This community should be given the first priority.
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We are not opposing, but the style of the approach and the way they came to this community is completely, completely wrong." "Carbon creditors - they should come back to the community.
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Not with the brokers. The time for the brokers has now gone!" What do you think about this story?
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Do you have any carbon offset projects near you? Let us know in the comments and subscribe for more videos like this.
Topics:carbon offsetsKenyaNorthern RangelandsBig TechNetflixMetaindigenous rightsrotational grazingcarbon sequestrationenvironmental justice
