Policy Advocacy & Land Rights

KWCA played a critical role in the passing of the Community Land Act 2016, which confers secure rights over community land — particularly in landscapes where conservancies operate. Implementation has since slowed, and the majority of community land remains unregistered.

We support implementation of the Act by facilitating communities to secure legal ownership of their land and to develop land use plans for sustainable management. We also advocate for the meaningful participation of women, youth and other marginalised groups in decisions concerning land and natural resources — especially in land use mapping, zoning and registration.

• Facilitating registration of community land transitioning from former group ranches and trust lands in priority wildlife landscapes.
• Developing the capacity of Community Land Management Committees to administer and manage registered community land, including mapping, zoning and registration.
• Supporting registered communities to develop land use plans that embed conservation as a core land use, balanced with grazing and settlement zones.
• Supporting national and target county governments to address institutional barriers to community land registration.
• Advocating for review of community land legislation and regulations, informed by implementation lessons.
• Informing the development of comprehensive land use planning guidelines with the National Land Commission and the State Department for Lands and Physical Planning.

Our advocacy seeks to create an enabling environment in which communities and private landowners are recognised, supported and rewarded for conserving Kenya’s biodiversity for the long term.

Sustaining wildlife conservation on community and private land requires supportive laws, appropriate incentives and reliable access to financial and technical assistance. KWCA advocates for policies and public investments that recognise conservation as a beneficial land use.

• Supporting reforms to the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act 2013 to strengthen legal recognition of conservancies and drive stronger legal and institutional frameworks.
• Encouraging the adoption of financial and non-financial incentives that reduce the costs of conservation and enable communities and private landowners to generate sustainable benefits from protecting biodiversity.
• Supporting the development, adoption and implementation of county conservancy laws that provide financial and technical assistance to conservancies.
• Advocating for the review of tourism and climate change laws — including carbon market regulations — to diversify conservancy income and position conservancies as climate-smart conservation models.
• Promoting the establishment and operationalisation of county conservancy funds and other sustainable public financing mechanisms.
• Advocating for national and county governments to recognise and invest in the contribution of conservancies to biodiversity conservation, livelihoods, peace and security, and climate resilience.
• Advancing national processes to design integrated natural resource management policies that connect the management of wildlife, land, water, forests and rangelands.

We partner with landscape conservancy associations and county governments to mainstream conservation into county planning and budgeting.

We cemented our partnership with the Council of Governors (COG) through a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen counties’ engagement in wildlife conservation and climate change mitigation through policy advocacy and conservation planning. KWCA is working with COG to develop a Model County Wildlife Conservation and Management Bill — a harmonised, replicable legislative framework to guide county governments in supporting the conservation and management of wildlife in their jurisdictions.

We collaborated with Baringo County Conservancies Association (BCCA), Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association (MMWCA) and Amboseli Ecosystem Trust (AET) to provide technical assistance for the development of County Conservancies Fund laws with the county governments of Baringo, Narok and Kajiado. The Narok and Baringo county conservancies funds were gazetted in 2025. These laws establish a legal framework allowing county governments to provide financial support to conservancies, ensuring sustainable conservation at the grassroots level.

Conservancies operate within a broad legal and regulatory framework covering wildlife conservation, land, governance, employment, taxation, tourism and environmental management. Compliance strengthens their legitimacy, improves accountability and builds trust with communities, government institutions, partners and investors.

However, most conservancies do not always have sufficient information, systems or technical capacity to understand and meet these requirements. KWCA works with conservancies and relevant government agencies to simplify compliance processes, strengthen institutional capacity and promote responsible conservation practices.

We guide conservancies to understand and comply with national and county laws, regulations and sector standards, and we engage government institutions to clarify legal requirements, improve coordination and make compliance processes more accessible.

Our support goes beyond registration. We help conservancies strengthen their governance and operations to become accountable, transparent institutions — managing legal, operational and reputational risks, respecting human rights, protecting community rights and adopting appropriate social and environmental safeguards.

• Strengthening partnerships with regulatory institutions responsible for wildlife, tourism, environmental management and natural resources — improving coordination between government agencies, KWCA and conservancies, and promoting compliance with sector standards so conservancies improve the quality and safety of their operations.
• Supporting conservancy registration with the Kenya Wildlife Service under the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act 2013, raising awareness of registration procedures, requirements and benefits, and guiding conservancies through the documentation.
• Strengthening conservancies’ capacity to comply with Kenya’s Constitution and other applicable laws — including governance, labour, taxation, financial management and reporting requirements — so they can establish effective internal systems and meet their statutory obligations.
• Supporting conservancies to institutionalise social and environmental safeguards: Free, Prior and Informed Consent, human rights based approaches to conservation, grievance and complaints mechanisms, environmental and social risk management, and the inclusion of women and youth in conservancy decision-making.

Conservancies protect wildlife, restore degraded land, store carbon and safeguard other natural resources. They also create jobs, improve peace and security, and enable communities to cope with the impacts of climate change. Yet most communities and private landowners who live with wildlife carry the greatest share of the costs of providing those benefits.

Donor funding and tourism income are not enough. Conservancies need diversified revenue — government support, private investment, environmental markets and other financing approaches — to manage their land effectively and deliver lasting benefits for people and nature.

KWCA works with government, the private sector and conservation partners to advocate for policies and long-term financing mechanisms that recognise the contribution of conservancies to Kenya’s social and economic development. We also ensure that emerging financing mechanisms respond to the needs of conservancies, respect community and landowner rights, deliver fair and transparent benefit sharing, apply strong social and environmental safeguards, and produce measurable, lasting conservation outcomes.

• Participating in national carbon market law and regulation — including the Climate Change (Carbon Markets) Regulations 2023, trading regulations and the carbon registry framework — to strengthen community safeguards. Our advocacy focuses on Free, Prior and Informed Consent, equitable benefit sharing, transparency, grievance redress and the protection of community rights.
• Convening the National Conservancies Carbon Markets Policy Conference 2025 — Sustainable Financial Solutions for Conservancies: Unlocking Carbon Credit Potential — to build awareness among conservancy leaders of emerging carbon policies, regulatory compliance and market opportunities.
• Advocating for non-market approaches that support public investment, capacity building, technology transfer and direct financing for conservation and climate action, without relying solely on carbon or biodiversity markets.
• Collaborating with the Carbon Markets Association of Kenya (CAMAK) to advance the sector through joint policy advocacy and capacity building, creating a platform for information exchange between carbon project developers and the conservancy network.

A Guide to Carbon Projects for Conservancies demystifies the fast-evolving carbon sector — its risks, uncertainties and opportunities — and helps conservancies engage with the Voluntary Carbon Market on equitable terms that maximise social, ecological and financial benefits.

Kenya’s development ambitions and its ecological foundations are on a collision course. Nature-based sectors account for 44% of GDP and 70% of national employment, yet the infrastructure and extractive investments driving Vision 2030 and the BETA agenda are accelerating biodiversity loss faster than public budgets can absorb the costs.

Biodiversity offsets offer a practical, enforceable mechanism to close that gap. They require developers to finance measurable conservation outcomes that compensate for residual biodiversity impacts — applying the polluter-pays principle and high-integrity market principles, and redirecting private capital toward nature. In other jurisdictions, including the UK, Australia and Colombia, offset frameworks have generated measurable conservation outcomes while reducing the fiscal burden on the state.

KWCA, in partnership with Terrasos and Earth Acre, is implementing a joint project to shape biodiversity and compliance markets in Kenya and advance biodiversity offsets.