Jonathan Bii, LGT Impact Fellow at One Mara Carbon Project
“During my fellowship with the One Mara Carbon Project, I came in with questions and left with even more, but better ones. In this reflection, I share how a journey that began with scepticism turned into one of listening, learning, and witnessing values-aligned leadership in action.”
When I joined the One Mara Carbon Project (OMCP) as a Communications Fellow in September 2024, I came in with questions and perceptions shaped by scepticism and curiosity. OMCP is a locally-led carbon project in Kenya’s Maasai Mara that works with individual local landowners who, years ago, came together to form conservancies. Through these conservancies, they have restored Mara’s grassland ecosystem and built a model for sustainable income and generational wealth. These successful efforts drew in partners and supporters, both locally and internationally, myself included. Looking back, I came to the project with (what I thought was) well-informed scepticism of carbon projects in the Global South, and specifically, Kenya.
From my work with grassroots movements in Africa and the Global South, I had seen that, often, global initiatives carry a legacy of power imbalances, broken promises, and historical injustice. In Kenya, this legacy is particularly pronounced in conservation, where land ownership is often complex and deeply affected by colonial histories that often disenfranchise local communities and their ancestral lands. Because of this, conservation can be a loaded word. As such, carbon projects are often viewed as yet another extractive model designed to benefit foreigners while communities remain side-lined. This story of exploitation, and exclusion from decision-making tables is one that the society I grew up in knows all too well, from their lived experiences.
So I thought: maybe if I had a seat at the table as this particular project was being shaped, I could help push the everyday man’s agenda from the inside, as the underdog’s Trojan horse. I hoped that at the very least, I could advocate for accountability. What I didn’t expect was that I was embarking on a personal transformation journey that demonstrated to me the gift of listening.
Unlearning assumptions and the gift of listening
My first transformational experience happened in the field during stakeholder engagement sessions with the local landowners, early on in my assignment. Sitting with the community during their deliberations, I quickly realised these local landowners had agency, and it was not that they needed to be “included” in the process, but they were designing it. Through their conservancies, they had revived the Mara landscape, and OMCP was a response to a question they were already asking: how can we turn this effort into meaningful supplementary income? This was the first inflection point that changed everything for me.
With this knowledge, I had to return to the drawing board and question my own assumptions. This process of inquiry and community engagement led me to restructure some of the strategies I had laid out, becoming the blueprint for my fellowship. Throughout this fellowship I had to actively listen and ask pointed questions to the landowners, community leaders, and OMCP team members, recognising they held critical context, histories, frustrations, and insights. This process also made me question the ‘assumed advocate’ role I had put on myself, because advocacy without listening is just noise. My role was to listen and then build platforms for others to speak.
Community stakeholder engagement session, Isaaten Conservancy
Reimagining communications
That shift made an immediate difference. Much of the communications work turned out to be about building systems, including those that didn’t exist before, like the grievance and feedback mechanism for the project. I had never done this before, but I jumped in knowing we had to design something accessible, equitable, and transparent to all landowners. We also had to consider language, literacy levels, existing social structures, and figure out how to create trust in the system. This commitment to listening also shaped our community radio campaign, broadcast in Maa, one of the more than 40 local languages spoken in Kenya—a language I do not speak. Through building deep relationships with local subject matter experts, we were able to lean on our team to create impactful targeted radio campaigns, in a region where vernacular radio is the most accessible medium.
It served as a reminder to a time-honoured truth: it is easy to get caught up in amplifying the loudest voices, when racing to produce the most polished materials…but is this what is most impactful? This local language campaign demonstrated to me that, while it often calls for more work, impactful communication is a product of presence, proximity, and patience. My biggest takeaway is that true leadership is local, and oftentimes it is not loud. Communication professionals must listen, keenly.
Values-aligned leadership
My second transformation came in the form of a confirmation: that values-aligned leadership works. We have a serious leadership gap across many sectors, especially when it comes to alignment between words and actions. But this fellowship affirmed for me that values-aligned leadership does exist, and it’s happening a lot more on the ground than we often give credit for. The landowners behind OMCP are values-aligned leaders. For example, some conservancies have revisited and restructured their governance models because they didn’t anticipate how far the project would go or how many new opportunities would arise. They adapted. They adjusted. And they kept moving forward. That is leadership. The younger generation of landowners is also stepping up and they’re asking tough questions about sustainability. They’re looking at what their parents and grandparents built and asking: How do we make this make sense for us and for those who come after us?
That kind of fierce care and protection for their people and community is the kind of leadership the world could learn from. It isn’t always clean or linear, but when is leadership ever a clear linear path?
Community engagement with landowners in Narok
Final reflections
There is much to be said about what is broken in the climate and development space. Extractive systems still exist. Injustice still happens. But being out in the Mara, working alongside a community that dared to imagine something different, reminded me that hope is not naïve. Or, to borrow Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s words, not simply “the foolishness of hope.” Hope can be a strategy. It is possible to build projects that centre dignity, agency, and benefit for communities. It is possible to reimagine systems from the ground up. And it is possible for communications to be a tool for justice and storytelling.
This fellowship has affirmed that good work is happening. That it is being led by good people. And that we all have a role to play in making sure those stories are told, resourced, respected, and remembered.
Cover photo credit: Photo by Gjermund Hansen