Protection of Communities to Avoid Losing SEPLS to Carbon Credit Projects in Northern and Southern Kenya

Overview

This project is designed to secure the social, ecological and economic sustainability of two selected pastoralist rangeland SEPLS in Kenya. Arid and semi-arid rangelands cover over 75% of Kenya's land mass and contain 75% of Kenya's wildlife. They are crucial for conservation, because they also contain about 90% of Kenya's livestock. This project is being carried out in two SEPLS, but lessons from this project can be seen as being extremely important to ensuring sustainability in a large part of Kenya, and further afield across East Africa. Carbon trading has emerged in Kenya as a means by which foreign capital interests are taking control of lands used for pastoral production systems through the use of false financial incentives and misrepresentation of their objectives. The aim of this project is to create a foundation from which Pastoralists can make informed decisions that benefit their economies, food security, as well as the ecological sustainability of these crucial environments. Currently, they are vulnerable to exploitation due to a lack of structured information on their rights and responsibilities as stewards of these ecologically important lands.

• (1) Community training on the current dangers of carbon credits agreements, and the value of their land, based on the pastoralist livestock production chain
• (2) Development of information materials in local languages to give technical and legal knowledge on carbon credit agreements
• (3) Creation of an online toolbox to guide those who are considering entering into carbon credits agreements
• (4) Production of information materials for dissemination to stakeholders
• (5) Livestock production survey
• (6) Securing pastoralist systems in SEPLS