Kenya’s Borana People Denounce “Skullduggery” Over Carbon Credit Scheme Used By Netflix And Meta

March 30, 2023

One of the Kenyan Indigenous peoples affected by a notorious carbon trading scheme used by Netflix and Meta has issued a strongly-worded denunciation of the project.

The Northern Kenya Grassland Carbon Project (NKGCP) is run by the controversial Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT). A Survival International report published two weeks ago revealed that the project relied on breaking down the Indigenous people’s traditional grazing practices, and had not received their Free, Prior and Informed consent.

Verra, the organization that certifies carbon offset schemes, has recently suspended the issuance of carbon credits from the project, in a sign of significant concerns over NRT’s claims for it.

Now the Borana Council of Elders has released a statement. In it they say:

- There have been “gross human rights violations by NRT against the Indigenous pastoral communities in Northern Kenya.”

- “We now understand that NRT’s push to frustrate community land registration processes is driven by massive commercial interests and benefits it derives from these Indigenous communities’ unregistered land.”

- “[We] categorically state that no Free Prior and Informed Consent process was followed and obtained from our communities.”

- NRT’s Northern Kenya Grassland Carbon Project is a “green scam.”

- “We demand that NRT vacates our community land [and] makes public its audited financial accounts for this project.”

The Borana also say that they are considering “instituting further legal actions against NRT for its continued robbery of community resources.”

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

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