Kenya has embraced carbon trading as an opportunity for export business. The strategy has sparked tensions as communities feel pressured to sign over their land rights to carbon developers. DW reports from Kajiado County.
00:00This stretch of land has belonged to the Olobis family for generations, but maybe not for much longer.
00:08Carbon developers want to use their land to sell credits.
00:11To do that, the Olobises would have to leave their land untouched and break with traditional grazing patterns.
00:17The family says the deal is confusing.
00:21Father, Olobis Shani, fears a land grab and says he's ready to fight to protect his home.
00:26We use this land to graze. We even protect the wild animals ourselves, and we have never needed to sell the land to do that.
00:35We know how to protect this area, so we don't need anyone else to come and help us preserve it.
00:43The Olobises are part of the vast Oldo Nyonyokie group ranch where the community shares and manages the land together.
00:50Used primarily for grazing, this land is attracting carbon developers and causing local leaders to pressure the group to sign over their land rights.
01:00No. No. There's no room to sit down and talk. Talk about what? We cannot talk. This is our home.
01:08The fears in Oldo Nyonyokie are fueled by what happened in another community a few kilometers away.
01:14Residents in Olkeri signed a carbon credit deal three years ago and say the promised benefits never came.
01:20The community land leadership is in bed with the private company that is selling credits.
01:26Now we have become invisible somewhere in the middle.
01:29Anything they said they would do, we haven't seen.
01:33They gave people fake checks that were meant for bursaries.
01:36I was one of them. That check had 50 euros written on it.
01:40Then they scrubbed somewhere.
01:41I tried to go bank it, but I was told they don't take checks that have been tampered with.
01:47The company behind the project, Souls for the Future Africa, insists all agreements between them and the Kajiado communities were transparent and above board.
01:58These things are done in broad daylight, in an AGM, which brings everybody together.
02:06And in the meeting, we had county government representatives.
02:13So this is a process that is transparent.
02:16So if anybody had an issue, they could have raised in the AGM.
02:20Kirkadi says no formal complaints have been filed and that the company hasn't sold any carbon credits yet.
02:27But internal emails we've seen show he was informed of concerns about benefits months ago.
02:32He claims any money given to the community so far was just a goodwill gesture.
02:36To convince them that this is indeed a viable project and it has happened somewhere, they don't really believe.
02:46We decided that for us to be able to motivate people to participate in this project, can we have something small that we can give them?
03:00Despite the confusion, Kenya has its eyes on the global carbon market.
03:05Kenya's government says a 2024 law now requires all carbon credit projects to go through strict approval processes, including environmental and social impact assessments.
03:16Before any project developer goes to initiate a project, there must be the free private consent from the communities in the law now.
03:25They must receive what we call the community development agreements, where the project developer and the communities agree on the project that is going to be done and how the benefits are going to go to the communities.
03:38But what happens to communities like Olkeri, who signed their deals before the new law took effect?
03:43Whatever was meant for the communities goes to the communities, and that is the law.
03:48If there is any grievances now within this law, then you can go to the High Court.
03:55Far from the city in Old Onyonyokie, a law meant to protect a community like this seems distant.
04:02Here, they say they've been left to navigate a complex carbon market with little support and even less power.
04:08As we leave, they ask us a simple question.
04:11If the land can make money, who should profit?
