GOTU, Kenya — Under the shade of an acacia tree in northern Kenya’s sweltering dry season, a group of elders have gathered to discuss community business in the town of Gotu. Two hours or so from the regional capital of Isiolo, the small but bustling cattle town of Gotu is typical of Kenya’s northern rangeland. Young men whip herds of camels across the road. Goats nibble on shrubs next to small mud-brick homes and tin-roofed shops. A nearby river, reduced to a trickle in anticipation of the coming rains, bakes in the sun. Rashid Susa, a wiry 70-year-old herder with a weathered face and dyed red beard, is explaining his support for a conservation NGO that everyone in this area knows well: The Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT). He lists the benefits it’s brought to Gotu in the 14 years it’s been operating here: the salaries earned by community wildlife rangers, scholarships divvied out from carbon credit payments, help tracking down stolen livestock after raids by neighboring communities. Around the circle, heads nod in agreement. The town is part of the Nakuprat-Gotu conservancy, one of 45 NRT “member” conservancies in Kenya and Uganda. At least in this crowd of older men, NRT is popular. The men here are from the Borana ethnicity, but their conservancy is shared with Turkana herders they used to fight with. Violence and cattle raiding between the two communities was once so bad it made the highway that runs through town impassable, but co-managing Nakuprat-Gotu improved their…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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