Corporate climate claims vs. Indigenous rights
The Northern Kenya Rangelands Carbon Project (NKRCP) spans approximately 4.7 million acres and markets itself as the world’s largest soil-carbon removal initiative. Major corporations including Meta, Netflix, and British Airways have purchased carbon credits generated through this scheme to offset their greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet, local pastoralist communities such as the Maasai, Borana, Samburu, and particularly the Ogiek argue that the project disrupted their traditional livelihoods, constrained their grazing routes, and ignored their rights to land. Reports highlight a lack of informed consent, restricted access to ancestral lands, and even the use of armed rangers as enforcers.

Court rulings and legal violations
In January 2025, Kenya’s Environment and Land Court found that two protected areas - Biliqo Bulesa and Cherab - within the NKRCP had been established unconstitutionally and without proper community participation. The court barred NRT (Northern Rangelands Trust) from operating there or deploying rangers, overturning about 20 per cent of the project’s credits and raising questions about the legality of similar conservancies.

The court’s ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed in 2021 by 165 local pastoralists, who alleged coerced consent, intimidation, and the forced appropriation of community land for the project.

Certification under scrutiny
Verra - the independent certification body behind many voluntary carbon credits - paused the project’s issuance of new credits pending a second review due to these legal concerns and earlier methodological critiques.

Critics have also flagged systemic methodological issues: poor accounting for carbon additionality, risks of leakage (whereby protection in project areas increases degradation elsewhere), imprecise tracking of herding movements, and absurd discrepancies between herder reports and satellite data.

Survival International described the project as “Blood Carbon,” arguing indigenous herding practices were being dismantled, with environmental claims failing to justify such disruption.

Allegations of State backed evictions and cultural erasure
The Ogiek community in Mau Forest experienced violent evictions in 2023, their homes destroyed by armed forest rangers. Lawyers and rights groups say these actions were connected to carbon credit interests, particularly through negotiations with Dubai-based Blue Carbon, despite the company denying active projects.

Impacts on grassroots communities

• Loss of traditional livelihoods and autonomy: imposed grazing regimes disrupted seasonal migrations and customary pasture management systems (such as Gada and Mpaka), affecting food security and cultural identity.

• Marginalisation and harm: women workers reportedly lacked protective gear and faced daily hardship in executing rangeland regeneration tasks for meagre pay.

• Environmental mismatch: drought and climate stress, already decimating livestock and vegetation, call into question the project’s long-term viability and carbon benefits.

Global repercussions
The controversy underscores widespread criticism of voluntary carbon markets as enabling corporate greenwashing while ignoring real emissions reductions or local rights. Following scrutiny of projects like this one, the voluntary carbon sector is seeing calls for tighter regulation and integrity standards. Verra’s review and court rulings may set precedents on corporate accountability and Indigenous-informed practice in carbon offsetting.