Nakukulas community receives their title under the Community Land Act
In November 2024, the Nakukulas community from the Turkana County in Kenya registered their land under the Community Land Act. This is a significant step for the community in protecting their land rights. With a community land title, the community is now legally recognized both as an entity and owners of their land. Registration formalizes community ownership, providing legal security and protection against encroachment or illegal land grabbing. A community title deed serves as legal proof of ownership.
The Nakukulas community is one of many in Kenya who are registering their land in order to strengthen their rights. This came after Kenya enacted the Community Land Act (CLA) in 2016. CLA provides the legal procedure for communities to register their community land. Prior to the CLA, communities held their land either as group ranches or as trust lands under the Land (Group Representatives) Act and the Trust Land Act respectively.
“Community land” became recognized as the third category of land under Kenya’s National Land Policy of 2009, and eventually under the Constitution (2010). CLA was enacted to provide for this category and Natural Justice immediately started taking steps to empower communities to register their land. In 2022 we decided to work with Nakukulas community.
The Nakukulas community lives in the Turkana East sub-County. It is one of the communities that held their land as former trust land, and as a pastoral community. The community’s land is used for grazing, cultural purposes, and other communal activities.
Caption: The Nakukulas area, formerly known as Kochadin
Controversially, the land is the site of many oil-related activities. There are two oilfields that are found on the land i.e. Ngamia and Amosing oilfields. Furthermore, a project component of the LAPSSET project is planned to pass through Nakukuals community land. The Project Oil Kenya is planning to establish a Central Processing Facility (CPF) for extraction crude oil in Nakukulas.
The Road to Registration
The community was gazetted in 2023 by the Ministry of Lands as one of the 63 village units in Turkana. The key stages of the community land registration process included: publication of the inventory, election of members of the Community Land Management Committees (CLMC), registering the community, developing of the community register bylaws, the adjudication process, and registration of the community’s land.
As former trust land, the process was challenging. There were delays, for example in publishing the inventory and the adjudication programme. Other people claimed ownership over the same land. There was also a delay in the issuance of the title deed.
Caption: Legal empowerment session with the Community Land Management Committee
Natural Justice’s main focus was on the community’s governance structures. This included their bylaws, the CLMC and the Community Assembly, which is the community’s main decision-making body. In drafting of the bylaws, we worked with the community to incorporate their traditional knowledge into their bylaws – guided by Article 2(6) of the Constitution. We believe in documenting community’s traditional knowledge with regards to their biocultural heritage, and in the case of community land registration and natural resources, this is important as communities have held their land in accordance with their customary practices and livelihood systems.
We also provided legal empowerment to the CLMC as the main representative body of the community. We provided information on the importance of the registration process, their roles and responsibilities as provided for in the CLA and the CLA Regulations, access to information, importance of public participation, compulsory land acquisition, stakeholder engagement, advocacy on matters relating to their community land, and climate change.
With other partners such as Turkana Extractives Consortium, Kenya Oil and Gas Working Group, and Pamoja Trust, the community was able to engage with stakeholders at the county and national level, such as on the Alternative Justice Systems Policy. This was an important step for the registration process.
What does the community land title mean for Nakukulas?
With a community land title, the community is now legally recognized both as an entity and owners of their land. Registration formalizes community ownership, providing legal security and protection against encroachment or illegal land grabbing. A community title deed serves as legal proof of ownership.
The community can now engage with third parties directly. The County government’s role as trustees has ceased to exist since the community received their title document. Therefore, in cases such as compulsory land acquisition, the community will be compensated directly. In addition, the community can now also pursue their monies that are held in trust by the County government of Turkana, or receive any monies paid as compensation for their land. While this is a big responsibility, the community has travelled a long path of empowerment.
