Agnes Nailantei remembers a time when life was easier in Kenya’s Chyulu Hills.

Nailantei comes from a long line of Maasai pastoralists who thrived in this region north of Mount Kilimanjaro, where rolling ridges stretch from cloud forests to savanna grasslands.

"The land provided. We never wanted for pasture; after harvests our granaries were full to the brim with maize and beans,” Nailantei, 29, recalled of her childhood. “The rains were good and even a small plot was enough to feed your family and pay for your children’s school."

But changes set in motion decades ago gradually began to take their toll: Communal lands had been privatized, and roads and railways brought an influx of settlers, straining the region’s resources.

Climate-driven droughts delivered additional blows — decimating livestock and slashing farmers’ incomes. Desperate families chopped trees for charcoal and poached wildlife for meat. As agriculture expanded, unsustainable practices transformed the land; cycles of slash-and-burn farming eroded the soil.

“Some people lost three-quarters of their livestock during one drought,” Nailantei said. “I remember the schools started to empty because families couldn’t pay the fees."

Herding cattle in Chyulu Hills. © Ami Vitale

A new investment in people and nature

Chyulu Hills was on the brink — and with no sources of long-term funding to protect and restore its forests and grasslands, a coalition of environmental organizations, government agencies and local communities turned to nature itself for a solution. 

In 2017, Conservation International and the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust led the launch of a forest carbon project to generate funds to prevent deforestation, and support the livelihoods and well-being of local communities.

The initiative flips the script on market forces that have historically placed a higher value on forests when they are dead than alive. With forest carbon projects, companies or individuals looking to reduce their carbon pollution can buy and trade forest-based carbon credits to offset a portion of their emissions. Revenues from these credits — each of which represents one metric ton of avoided emissions — are then invested in communities as an incentive to restore their forests and stop deforestation, the second-leading cause of climate change after fossil fuel use.

Initially, some communities there were skeptical. But improvements in schools, health clinics and other initiatives funded by the sale of carbon credits convinced families that protecting the forests could bring long-term benefits. 

Nailantei, who now leads community outreach for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, saw this change firsthand. 

“When the credits started to produce tangible benefits that communities could see, that’s when it started clicking in people’s minds,” she said. “People started believing in the project. They felt a sense of ownership over it."

Chyulu Hills harbors Kenya's largest elephant population. © Charlie Shoemaker

Nature pays for its own protection

Today, the forest carbon project spans 410,000 hectares (one million acres) and prevents the release of 580,000 metric tons of carbon emissions annually — that’s the equivalent of taking 830,000 gas-powered cars off the road over the past six years. Over its 30-year lifetime, the project is expected to prevent at least 18 million metric tons of climate-warming carbon from entering the atmosphere.

And while reducing carbon emissions to stem climate change is a global win, the project’s local benefits are equally profound. Carbon revenues funded an emergency school food program during a recent drought, ensuring children don’t go hungry. They’ve improved village health services, making it safer for women to give birth closer to home. And they have even provided scholarships for the neediest families, in some cases covering the entire cost of students’ secondary education.

“This is a project for local people, by local people,” said Seif Hamisi, who leads Conservation International’s initiatives in Kenya. “It’s producing measurable benefits for nature and the climate, but perhaps most strikingly for the health and well-being of families that are facing the impacts of a changing climate.”

The forests of Chyulu Hills inspired Ernest Hemingway’s “Green Hills of Africa.” © Charlie Shoemaker

Power to the people 

Perhaps the project’s most striking feature is its governance — it is owned and managed by nine local groups, including four Indigenous communities that make all decisions on how carbon revenues are spent. Their mission is clear: to invest in education, health care and new job opportunities that will improve families’ well-being, while alleviating the economic pressures that drive deforestation.

The steady stream of revenue from the sale of carbon credits has been “transformational,” said Andrey Arutyunyan, a manager for the carbon project.

“In the past, NGOs or other organizations have often come in and tried to tell communities what they need,” he said. “This is different. Carbon revenues provide sustainable funding for improvements that address the communities’ priorities.”

“The decision power sits with them,” Arutyunyan added. “They use the funding as they see fit. It creates an incentive to align everyone toward long-term goals and think strategically — not just for one year, but multiple years.”

Back to school

Education has seen some of the biggest gains from the carbon project.

In Chyulu Hills, families grapple with dilapidated schools and crowded classrooms where 70 students might share fewer than 15 desks. Over the years, communities have used the carbon revenues to fix infrastructure at five primary schools — erecting new fencing to keep elephants out, building latrines and staff housing, and installing solar panels, water tanks and an electric pump. In 2022, after project leads consulted with the Rombo community, the carbon revenues funded 250 new desks across five primary schools and built a classroom to replace one lost to fire.

Carbon revenues help fix school buildings and fund scholarships. © Charlie Shoemaker

A recent drought worsened school dropout rates as families were forced to move in search of pasture and water for livestock. To prevent dropouts and boost household budgets, the forest carbon project stepped in with scholarships for some of the neediest families. Since 2019, these scholarships have covered school fees for nearly 4,000 children, with about 150 graduating with their entire secondary education paid for by carbon credit revenues.

“An education committee made up of local leaders chooses families that are very needy — families that are missing a parent, facing extreme economic hardship, or struggling with HIV or another ailment,” Nailantei said. “The scholarships pay for kids’ schooling. That’s a help for entire families, because money that would have been invested in school fees can be used elsewhere.”

For John Kiburu Musau, a single father of three, keeping his two sons and young daughter in school was an ongoing balancing act. With no steady job, he scraped by. When his daughter, Lucy, received a scholarship funded by carbon revenues it meant he didn’t have to choose which of his children to send to school.

“I was just struggling, wanting the children to study, but getting overwhelmed,” Kiburu Musau said. “Sometimes you hear [other parents say], ‘Let the boys study, this [girl] will get married.’ I didn't have those thoughts; I just struggled for her to continue."

A focus on girls

The project is working to support girls in other ways.

Using carbon credit funds, communities have launched an initiative aimed at tackling "period poverty" — a significant hurdle for many young girls in Kenya. Funded by carbon revenues, the program not only provides sanitary products, it also helps break the stigma surrounding menstruation, which has long kept girls out of school.

So far, the initiative has distributed more than 600 period kits — complete with reusable pads sewn by local women; soap; cloth and other essentials — to girls in 15 schools within the Rombo community. The impact? Period-related absenteeism has dropped from 26 percent to just 7 percent. And that’s only the beginning: This year, organizers plan to double the number of period kits they distribute.

“We are inviting young girls and boys to be educated on this topic, which is more or less still taboo in the project area,” Nailantei said. “We’re trying to create a safe space for the kids and parents to talk about it. The point is to keep girls in school.”

Feeding minds and bodies

When droughts, failed crops, and rising food and energy prices left children hungry, community leaders launched a school food program funded by carbon revenues.

Since it began in 2022, the program has provided meals of beans, maize and other food staples to 35,000 children in 94 schools across the Chyulu Hills region, ensuring they receive at least one meal every school day. 

“Many families are scraping by, you can see the effect of the drought in the number of children suffering from malnutrition,” Nailantei said.

The meals also encouraged school attendance — which Nailantei and other program officers seized on to promote conservation outreach.

“We talk about the importance of not deforesting, not poaching, things like that,” she said. “The young learners may not know what the Chyulu Hills looked like 50 years ago. So, we have these old films which show streams with flowing water and grasslands.

“We want to bring back the picture of how life used to be on this land and encourage them to actively participate in conservation activities,” she added. “It’s all about encouraging behavior change to bring back what used to be here.”

Maasai guides make their way to the cloud forest atop the Chyulu Hills. © Charlie Shoemaker

Further reading:

• Chyulu Hills Carbon Project Impact Report
• Report: Companies that buy carbon credits lead on climate action

Vanessa Bauza is the senior communications director at Conservation International. Want to read more stories like this? Sign up for email updates here. Donate to Conservation International here.