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Members of the 33-participant cohort at the Centre for the Nature Economy in Laikipia during a two-week training course in restoration science. [Amos Kiarie, Standard]
Africa is slowly repositioning itself from a passive recipient of climate science to a producer of restoration knowledge, as a new training and research model in Kenya seeks to integrate indigenous ecological wisdom into global environmental and climate finance systems.
At the heart of this shift is the Natural State – Centre for the Nature Economy (CNE) in Laikipia, which is training African practitioners to participate in restoration science, carbon markets and biodiversity financing—systems that have historically excluded the communities most dependent on land and natural resources.
The Centre argues that without such inclusion, Africa risks continuing to supply critical ecosystems for global climate stability while remaining marginal in the financial systems that value and trade nature.
For decades, global climate and biodiversity decisions have largely been designed and financed outside the landscapes they aim to restore, often in institutions based in Europe and North America.
Yet Africa hosts some of the world’s most critical ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots, with indigenous communities managing landscapes that hold an estimated 80 per cent of global biodiversity.
Despite this, these communities remain largely excluded from restoration finance, technical training and decision-making frameworks that determine how nature is valued economically.
The CNE in Laikipia is attempting to change that equation by building what it calls a “nature economy”—a system where ecosystems are not only protected but assigned economic value through mechanisms such as carbon and biodiversity credits.
Based in Loldaiga, Laikipia County, the Centre operates as a hybrid institution combining research, training and policy engagement. It brings together scientists, practitioners and indigenous communities to develop restoration models rooted in both local knowledge and global science.
According to Natural State founder and president Jonathan Baillie, Laikipia offers a unique convergence of ecological and cultural systems that makes it ideal for piloting such approaches.
“Kenya is already emerging as a leader in clean energy and in building an economy linked to the environment. Laikipia in particular has an amazing diversity of habitats and cultures. It is one of the best places to learn about restoration because all these systems meet here,” he said.
Community members at the Centre for the Nature Economy in Laikipia plant indigenous trees and grass, as part of community-led climate restoration initiatives. [Amos Kiarie, Standard]
The Centre is currently working with more than 30 global collaborators, including universities and scientific institutions, to align African restoration practice with international research while grounding it in local realities.
Baillie said the goal is not to import solutions but to co-create them.
“For a long time, many climate conversations have happened far from the landscapes themselves. What we are building is a platform where communities, researchers and practitioners develop solutions grounded in African realities and indigenous knowledge,” he said.
Capacity gap
The push comes at a time when global interest in nature-based solutions is accelerating.The World Economic Forum estimates that transitioning to a nature-positive economy could generate more than $10 trillion in annual business opportunities and create nearly 395 million jobs by 2030.Demand for biodiversity credits alone could rise to between $69 billion and $180 billion annually by 2050.
However, Africa currently attracts only about 2 per cent of global clean energy and climate finance, despite its ecological importance.
At the same time, the continent faces a severe capacity gap. Natural State estimates that up to 97 per cent of restoration practitioners in Africa cannot afford professional training, limiting their ability to access increasingly technical climate finance systems.
To address this gap, the Centre recently trained 33 practitioners from six African countries in its inaugural cohort.The two-week programme focused on ecosystem monitoring, biodiversity restoration, carbon measurement and integration of indigenous knowledge into scientific frameworks.
For many participants, it marked a shift from fragmented environmental projects to systems-based restoration thinking. Among the participants was Ing’utu Simasiku, a technical advisor with WeForest Zambia, who works across the Central Copperbelt and Northern Zambia regions supporting forest restoration programmes.
She said the biggest challenge in restoration is not planting trees, but ensuring long-term survival of restored ecosystems after donor-funded projects end.
“In regions where wildfires remain one of the biggest threats, sustainability depends on strengthening local institutions such as community forest management groups so they are organised and capable of managing resources independently,” she said.
Simasiku noted that while ecological restoration projects such as Katanino Forest have demonstrated success, sustainability remains uncertain once external funding phases out.
“We have effectively restored forests like Katanino, but the real question is sustainability. If we leave the project area, will the community continue managing the forest successfully?” she said.
She said the training highlighted the importance of governance systems and institutional strength in ensuring restoration longevity beyond project cycles.
Kenya’s Benedict Muyale, a resource mobiliser in the environmental sector, said the biggest gap is not knowledge, but structure.
“Many projects fail not because communities lack knowledge, but because there are no systems to turn that knowledge into fundable projects. This training shows how to bridge design and implementation,” he said.
Participants also pointed to a long-standing divide between formal science and indigenous knowledge systems.
“Before this, science and community knowledge often worked in parallel. Here we are learning they must be integrated if restoration is to succeed long-term,” Muyale said.
That integration is central to the CNE model, which seeks to align ecological restoration with economic systems such as carbon markets and biodiversity credits.
Traditional knowledge
For members of the Maiyanat community in Laikipia, restoration is not an academic concept but a lived experience shaped by decades of environmental change.
Wilfred Mejooli recalls a landscape that once supported vast grasslands, seasonal water points and diverse indigenous vegetation.“I grew up seeing these vast landscapes in Laikipia. We have always cared for them using traditional knowledge,” he said.However, he notes that rainfall patterns have become increasingly unpredictable and some indigenous plant species have declined over time.
Mejooli argues that while communities have continued to protect landscapes using indigenous knowledge, much of this knowledge remains undocumented and excluded from formal conservation systems.
He also highlighted a critical gap in understanding carbon markets at community level.
“For a long time, communities have protected these landscapes without understanding how carbon credits work. With centres like this closer to the people, communities can now learn how to measure carbon and produce high-quality credits while protecting their land,” he said.
Although carbon and biodiversity markets are growing rapidly, many indigenous communities remain excluded due to technical and financial barriers.
Mejooli said this exclusion risks sidelining the very people who are central to ecosystem protection.
He called for more decentralised training institutions closer to indigenous communities to bridge the gap between conservation practice and climate finance systems.
According to Susan Kiringo, Training Centre and Partnerships Coordinator at CNE, the institution’s programmes are shaped directly by community needs.
She said public consultations revealed that many local practitioners lacked technical skills required to engage in restoration and nature markets.
“We design programmes to suit all community members because many people told us they do not have the knowledge or technical skills needed to participate in restoration and nature markets,” she said.
The training integrates ecosystem science, carbon accounting and indigenous knowledge systems to create what the Centre describes as “practical restoration capacity.”
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