The Northern Rangelands Trust was established in 2004. Its mission is to develop resilient community conservancies which transform people’s lives, secure peace and conserve natural resources. It does this in a number of ways.

> It raises funds for the conservancies.
> It provides them with advice on how to manage their affairs.
> It supports a wide range of training and helps broker agreements between conservancies and investors.
> It also monitors performance, providing donors with a degree of oversight and quality assurance.

NRT’s highest governing body is the Council of Elders. The chairs of the conservancies make up the majority, and are joined by institutional members representing county councils, local wildlife forums, the Kenya Wildlife Service and the private sector. The Council guides NRT policy and is responsible for drawing up the bylaws for its operation and administration. It also appoints eight of the 15-member Board of Directors, to whom the chief executive officer is answerable. 

NRT is now widely seen as a model of how to support community conservancies. Its success has helped shape new government regulations on establishing, registering and managing community conservancies in Kenya.

NRT-Coast/NCC
As the number of NRT conservancies grows, so does the need for more satellite NRT support centres. NRT’s main headquarters is situated in Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, which has worked closely with NRT since its inception. While Lewa provides a good base for the northern conservancies, it proved too remote to support NRT’s coastal communities effectively. With 6 community conservancies along Kenya’s northern coastline so far, and NRT’s vision to expand its reach without overstretching, it was considered paramount that there be a satellite headquarters in the coastal region. And so the idea for NRT-Coast was born, and a headquarters set up in Lamu. During the initial stages of the branch, it went by the name NCC (North Coast Conservancies) although it is now officially known as NRT – Coast. 

NRT-Coast has its own governing body, but maintains the same governance structure as NRT. It has its own board and council of elders, members of which also attend NRT’s board and council meetings to ensure the link between the two is kept strong.

NRT-Coast currently includes the community conservancies of Ishaqbini, Ndera, Lower Tana Delta Conservation Trust, Hanashak-Nyogoro, Pate, Awer and Kiunga. There are different priorities here from the inland NRT conservancies. Although Ishaqbini, Hanashak – Nyogoro, and Tana Delta C.T. are mainly pastoralist like their inland counterparts, the coastal habitat poses different challenges. Communities in Ndera practice riverine farming, livelihoods in Pate are based around fishing and mangrove cutting, and communities in Awer rely on their coastal forest for sources of income.