Govind TekaleA video circulating online has put an uncomfortable phrase back into public conversation: green colonialism. The clip reports on what it describes as a gathering of Indigenous leaders who say conservation and climate finance are, in places, repeating old patterns of land dispossession under a new, environmentally branded name. Whether or not every claim in the video can be independently verified, the underlying questions it raises — about who controls land, who consents to projects built on it, and who benefits from the money those projects generate — are well documented in conservation and climate-policy research. Understanding those questions matters for anyone following Indigenous conservation land rights, carbon markets Indigenous communities, or the broader push toward decolonising conservation.
What “Green Colonialism” Means
Green colonialism is a term used by Indigenous rights advocates and researchers to describe environmental or climate projects — protected areas, carbon offset schemes, renewable energy developments, conservation corridors — that restrict or displace the people already living on and managing the land, often without their full consent, while outside actors retain control over decisions and revenue. The word “colonialism” is doing deliberate work here: critics argue the pattern echoes historical land seizures, just dressed in conservation or climate language instead of extraction. It is a contested framing, not a formal legal category, and different organisations and governments dispute how often, or how severely, it actually occurs. But as a lens, it has become central to debates over decolonising conservation worldwide.
The Nairobi Declaration, as Reported
The Reel in question cites a specific moment: it names Joseph Oleshangai and describes what it calls the first global gathering to decolonize conservation, which it says produced a document referred to as the Nairobi Declaration, reportedly backed by more than 60 Indigenous representatives from 14 countries. These details — the event’s framing, the participant count, the declaration’s name — come from the Reel’s own narration. They have not been independently verified in this piece, and readers should treat the specifics as claims made by the video rather than confirmed fact until corroborated by primary event documentation or independent reporting. What is independently well established, separate from this particular Reel, is that Indigenous coalitions have for years organised around shared demands: recognition of land tenure, a seat in decision-making over conservation and carbon projects on their territories, and a fairer share of resulting revenue.
Why Indigenous Land Governance Matters
Much of the world’s most biodiverse land sits within territories that Indigenous peoples and local communities have inhabited, used and managed for generations, frequently under customary systems that predate, and often go unrecognised by, national land titling regimes. When a government or company designates that land a protected area, a reforestation project, or a carbon offset site, the legal owner on paper and the long-term steward on the ground are not always the same party. Indigenous land governance refers to the customary institutions — councils, lineage systems, rotational use rights — through which communities have historically allocated and protected land. Conservation efforts that bypass these institutions, even with good intentions, risk undermining both the people’s rights and the very ecological knowledge that made the land worth conserving in the first place.
Free, Prior and Informed Consent
This is the backdrop against which free, prior and informed consent, or FPIC, has become a central standard. FPIC holds that Indigenous peoples have the right to give or withhold consent to projects affecting their lands and resources, and that this consent must be obtained before a project begins, free of coercion or manipulation, and based on full, accessible information about risks and benefits. FPIC is enshrined in international instruments such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but its legal enforceability varies sharply by country — some jurisdictions have written it into binding law, others treat it as a voluntary best practice, and enforcement mechanisms are frequently weak or absent. That gap between the principle and its enforcement is precisely where many disputes arise.
Carbon Markets: Promise and Pitfalls
Carbon markets are not one uniform mechanism; they range from government-run compliance systems to voluntary offset projects run by private developers, each with different standards, verification bodies and oversight. At their best, well-structured projects can channel real funding toward forest protection and community development. But the structure also creates specific risks worth naming without assuming they apply to every project: unclear or disputed land tenure can mean carbon rights are sold over land communities believe is theirs; consent processes can be rushed, poorly translated or signed by unrepresentative local figures; contracts are sometimes long, technical and difficult for communities to fully evaluate before signing; and revenue-sharing arrangements can leave the bulk of carbon credit proceeds with international developers or intermediaries rather than the people managing the land day to day. A Mongabay report on suspended Kenyan carbon credit projects illustrates how these concerns have played out in at least one documented case, though the specifics and outcomes of any individual project should be checked against that project’s own record, not generalised across the sector.
Criticism of Conservation Organisations
Some critics go further and name specific institutions. Simon Counsell, a longtime forest-governance researcher, has argued that certain large conservation organisations and carbon-market intermediaries benefit financially from projects while the communities living on the land retain limited power over decisions and revenue. This is Counsell’s critique, not an independently settled finding, and it is reported here as his stated position rather than a verified conclusion about any named organisation’s conduct. No response from the organisations he has criticised is represented in this piece, and readers seeking the full picture should look for those organisations’ own accounts alongside his.
A Practical Framework for Accountable Conservation
Cutting through the dispute, a workable accountability framework emerges from the issues above. Before supporting or evaluating any conservation or carbon project, ask: Is land tenure clearly documented and recognised by the communities involved, not just by government title? Was consent obtained through a genuine FPIC process, with adequate time, independent translation and real power to say no? Is the benefit-sharing arrangement public, and does it direct a substantial, verifiable share of revenue to the local community rather than intermediaries? Is there an independent grievance mechanism communities can use without fear of reprisal? And is the project’s governance structure transparent enough that outside researchers, journalists and the communities themselves can audit it over time? Projects that can answer these questions openly are far less likely to reproduce the dynamics critics call green colonialism — and far more likely to deliver the conservation outcomes they promise.
