Phone no: +254 731 282 207 or email us: [email protected]
COMMUNITY LAND PROTECTION
Our strategic objective with our Community Land Protection programme is to promote meaningful and inclusive participation of communities in land governance and climate justice.
At the KLA, we champion the right of local communities to protect, secure, and control their land and natural resources through both legal and social frameworks. Our work spans multiple counties such as Turkana, Wajir, Garissa, Narok, Kwale, Kilifi, Taita Taveta counties among others, where we engage and empower communities to understand their rights and take decisive action to safeguard their land. We work towards strengthening community land tenure rights, ensuring that local populations have the legal backing to access, use, and sustainably manage their land and resources.
Our approach involves:
Our Interventions
To address land justice effectively, it is essential to place marginalized and impoverished communities at the forefront of advocacy and action. For this purpose, community mobilization and public participation are central to the Kenya Land Alliance's (KLA) land governance initiatives.
Through community focused efforts, the KLA maps out, through social cartography, the land interests of minority groups and communities across various counties, including pastoralists and mining and oil drilling communities among other categories. The KLA approaches Community Land protection in various ways, including collaborating with stakeholders at both county and national levels. We do this through peer-to-peer learning, pushing for more registration of Community Land, and strengthening partnerships with stakeholders, duty-bearers, and like-minded organizations.
In advocating for food security, the KLA recognizes the threats posed by large multinational farms engaged in cash-crop farming for export, as well as the ongoing debates surrounding the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Kenya. The KLA collaborates with agronomists, food security experts, and biotechnology professionals to advance community-led, locally-owned solutions for land access and use that support sustainable food security.
The KLA’s work also highlights the importance of inclusive community participation in land investment and lease agreements. Many existing agreements, particularly in Northern Kenya where large conservancies operate, have been based on unfair terms agreed upon by a few gatekeepers, often excluding women and youth. The KLA pushes for audits of these agreements and a re-examination of terms for improved economic benefits and rights for all community members. This includes advocating for redress of human rights violations and addressing human-wildlife conflicts within conservancies.
Furthermore, the KLA is committed to addressing historical land injustices, particularly in regions such as the Coast, Rift Valley, and North Eastern counties. These injustices are often exacerbated by large-scale infrastructure projects like LAPSSET, SGR, mining activities, and privately-run conservancies. The KLA will continue to document and engage the National Land Commission (NLC) for restitution, ensuring that both historical and contemporary land grievances are addressed in line with constitutional mandates.
In line with the 2019 IPCC report on land and climate, the KLA is committed to empowering local communities by highlighting the vital link between land degradation, climate change, and its profound impacts. We advocate for strengthening community resilience by ensuring local communities are empowered to adapt to these challenges.
KLA advocates for robust public participation in developing and executing local physical development plans, including county-level strategies where necessary, to build climate resilience and reduce disaster risks. Additionally, we enhance communities' capacity to address climate imperatives while auditing existing land use plans, including the National Spatial Plan (2015-2045), to ensure they incorporate climate resilience, gender equality, and social inclusion, particularly for marginalized groups and vulnerable populations.
Furthermore, recognizing the potential exploitation of carbon credit trading, KLA will build local capacity to engage meaningfully in this market. Many foreign actors and conservancies in Northern Kenya have been trading carbon credits, without (or with minimal) local community involvement. KLA is committed to exposing such practices, advocating for transparency, and ensuring communities benefit fairly from this emerging market.