Report Blames Kenya Conservation Groups for Conflict

Ferdinand Omondi
BBC News, Nairobi

A new report by a US-based policy think-tank says that some conservancies in Kenya are driving local communities from their lands and fuelling ethnic conflict in the north.

Over this year, ethnic clashes involving pastoralists in wildlife conservation areas have left more than a dozen dead and displaced hundreds.

The Oakland Institute is accusing the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) of dispossessing communities of land in the name of conservation, while alleging that some of its armed ranger units have engaged in human rights abuses.

The trust denies all allegations and says the report is based on misconceptions.

The NRT is an umbrella organisation for 43 community conservancies in northern Kenya.