Nasheko Africa is an indigenous-led organisation working to restore East Africa’s degraded ecosystems. We work with the indigenous communities who hold that land, and we back them to lead its recovery.
East Africa’s rangelands are among the most degraded landscapes on the continent, and among the most recoverable. They are held by indigenous communities whose livelihoods depend on them directly.
Rangelands cover 88% of Kenya’s land surface and carry more than 70% of its land-dwelling wildlife. Across them, wildlife numbers have fallen by 68% since 1977. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region worst affected by declining grazing land productivity anywhere in the world. This collapse has happened within one lifetime, on land that is still occupied and still workable.
The people living with that collapse are the indigenous peoples and local communities whose entire economy rests on the health of the land. Households are losing 30 to 60 livestock to a single heatwave. Rivers that once ran through the dry season no longer reach it.
These communities hold a working knowledge of how these ecosystems function, built over generations and tested against every drought within memory. It is the most underused conservation asset in East Africa.
We put indigenous communities in charge of restoring their own landscapes, and we make sure they earn from doing it.
The world is travelling towards exactly what these communities have. Africa drew 81 million visitors in 2025, the strongest tourism growth of any region. We direct that money to the people restoring the land.
What Is At Stake
East Africa holds three of the planet’s 36 biodiversity hotspots. That biodiversity is disappearing.
3
of the world’s 36 biodiversity hotspots lie in East Africa: the mountains, the coast and the Horn
677
species in the Eastern Afromontane hotspot are now globally threatened
2,350
plant species in that same hotspot grow nowhere else on Earth
What has already gone
Eastern Afromontane
More than 1 million square kilometres of mountains and highlands, supplying fresh water to much of East Africa. Nearly 7,600 plant species, over 2,350 of them endemic.
Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa
Reduced to more than 400 scattered forest patches covering 6,259 square kilometres. Of its 4,050 vascular plant species, 43% grow nowhere else.
Horn of Africa
One of the world’s largest arid hotspots, added to the global list in the 2011 revision and still among the least protected.
Indigenous communities are most affected.
Indigenous peoples and local communities hold more of the world’s remaining intact ecosystems than any other group. As those ecosystems collapse, their communities lose their land, their livelihoods and their food supply first.
610m
hectares of the world’s remaining intact forest are held or managed by indigenous peoples and local communities
Top 10%
of global forest biodiversity is found on indigenous and community-held land, making its loss disproportionately damaging
20m+
pastoralists across East Africa depend on rangelands for their food, income and way of life, and have no other source of livelihood