Tribal-Led Carbon Projects Driving Economic and Environmental Impact

The voluntary carbon market—where companies purchase carbon credits to offset emissions—has emerged as a multi-billion-dollar industry, projected to reach $50 billion by 2030 (McKinsey). By funding projects that capture and store carbon, these markets offer a potential revenue stream for landowners who preserve healthy ecosystems.

Yet, despite being some of the most effective stewards of natural ecosystems, Indigenous communities have often been excluded from these financial benefits. While carbon projects involving tribal lands have the potential to support long-term conservation, many have been designed for the benefit of corporations rather than Tribal Nations, limiting tribal control and financial returns.

The National Indian Carbon Coalition (NICC) is changing that. By ensuring that Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities, not outside developers, retain complete control over carbon projects, NICC helps tribes fund critical infrastructure, reclaim ancestral lands, and invest in long-term environmental stewardship.

“We’re here to walk with tribes, help tribes to avoid the pitfalls, and to take advantage of these opportunities that are out here to support their land management goals.”

– Jake Stanton, Reforestation Project Manager, NICC

NICC’s approach ensures that climate investments drive lasting social and economic benefits for Tribal Nations, not just corporate carbon neutrality. This work aligns with the Council for Inclusive Capitalism’s Guiding Principles, which call for economic systems that are trusted, fair, responsible, dynamic, and sustainable.

A Quick History of Indigenous Land Loss & Economic Exclusion

Many assume tribes own all land within their reservation boundaries. The reality is far more complex. The General Allotment Act of 1887 (Dawes Act) forcibly divided tribal lands, selling “surplus” lands to non-Native settlers. By 1934, Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities in the contiguous United States had lost nearly two-thirds of their original land base.

Today, many reservations remain checkerboarded, meaning land is fragmented among the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), tribal governments, individual native landowners, non-native landowners, and corporations. This fragmentation makes it difficult for tribes to consolidate land, secure long-term investments, or implement conservation programs.

For example, on the Crow Reservation in Montana, nearly 4,000 individual landowners received purchase offers through the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations, a federal program designed to restore fractionated land to tribal trust land (wherein the BIA would manage this acreage in trust for the Crow Tribe). While this effort has returned over 197,200 equivalent acres to the Crow Tribe, the sheer number of individual landowners underscores the ongoing challenge of checkerboarding and land fragmentation.

At the same time, tribal lands are critical for climate resilience, containing vast forests, wetlands, and grasslands that store carbon. Yet, many carbon projects have excluded Indigenous leadership, treating tribal lands as corporate assets rather than ensuring Tribal Nations are equal stakeholders.

NICC’s work is centered on pursuing long-term global climate resilience through Indigenous stewardship of thriving ecosystems. By providing technical expertise and access to high-integrity carbon markets, NICC ensures that tribes retain complete control over their carbon assets, strengthening Indigenous land stewardship, promoting measurable resiliency, and creating benefits for communities to thrive.

How Carbon Finance Works

Carbon finance allows landowners to generate revenue by managing ecosystems in ways that sequester additional carbon or reduce emissions from ecological systems. Through nature-based climate solutions, carbon projects generate two types of verified carbon credits:

• Removal credits – Created by activities that draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, such as forest conservation, reforestation, and afforestation.
• Reduction credits – Generated by reducing emissions that would have otherwise occurred, through improved forest management, regenerative land use practices, and avoided deforestation.

Companies and investors purchase these credits to offset their carbon footprints, creating a financial mechanism supporting climate resilience, biodiversity, and sustainable land stewardship.

The Problem: Not All Carbon Projects Are Designed Equitably

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) reports that Indigenous communities steward around 20% of the Earth’s territory and safeguard 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. These lands hold significant potential for carbon sequestration. Yet, many carbon projects leave Indigenous communities out of the decision-making process and fail to share the benefits fairly, continuing a long history of outsiders extracting value from their lands while offering little in return.

Key challenges include:

• Lack of transparency – Landowners often have limited visibility into how carbon credits are calculated, sold, or how project revenues are shared. A 2023 Carbon Market Watch review of 47 voluntary carbon credit projects found that only 15 mentioned benefit-sharing arrangements, and just four provided evidence that benefits reached local communities. While not focused exclusively on Indigenous projects, these findings highlight widespread transparency gaps across the carbon market, particularly in how project developers report community impacts.
• Limited financial returns – In some cases, Indigenous communities receive only a small portion of the revenue generated by carbon credits. At the same time, project developers or third-party brokers retain most of the financial benefit. In Peru, for example, the Kichwa community in the Cordillera Azul region has taken legal action after not receiving benefits from carbon credits generated on ancestral land incorporated into a national park, despite the sale of credits to major corporations.
• Underfunding Indigenous-led initiatives – Despite their essential role in protecting forests and biodiversity, Indigenous communities receive only 17% of the $270 million in annual climate and conservation funding to support their land tenure and management. Most of this funding is funneled through international or national intermediaries rather than directly supporting Indigenous-led projects, according to a joint study by the Rights and Resources Initiative and Rainforest Foundation Norway.

The NICC Difference: A Model for Tribal Sovereignty

NICC ensures that carbon projects:

• Are led by tribes – A seat at the table ensures that Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities can retain sovereignty over land, carbon assets, and revenue.
• Generate lasting economic benefits – Carbon finance supports education, land reclamation, conservation, and long-term sustainability initiatives.
• Adhere to leading standards and evolving science – NICC projects are developed using the most respected carbon methodologies available at the time of creation, including those from Verra and ACR (Winrock), and are updated regularly to reflect the latest science. These are living projects, designed in collaboration with tribes to evolve, with baselines and assumptions adjusted as new data and modeling approaches emerge.

By removing barriers and providing technical support, NICC helps tribes maximize their lands’ financial and environmental potential on their own terms.

Real-World Impact

Through its tribal-led carbon projects, NICC is helping Tribal Nations fund critical infrastructure, reclaim ancestral lands, and invest in long-term environmental stewardship. The following projects demonstrate how NICC-supported carbon initiatives are driving tangible benefits for communities across the United States:

Project 1: Using Carbon Finance to Build a School

Photo Credit: Stephen Taglieri / National Indian Carbon Coalition

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (MBCI) has long fought to control its education system, taking governance from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1988. Now, revenue from MBCI’s 25,000-acre carbon offset project is helping to construct a $134-million middle and high school campus that will serve over 800 students. This project is more than just a new building—it represents tribal self-determination, cultural preservation, and economic resilience.

The new campus will incorporate Choctaw cultural elements, and provide modern learning facilities and amenities, including an electric bus depot—a first for the community. This ensures that the transition to better educational facilities is paired with a shift toward clean, sustainable transportation, aligning with broader efforts to reduce emissions and improve energy efficiency across the reservation.

By using carbon finance to invest in critical infrastructure, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is demonstrating how climate finance can be leveraged for long-term community development, on their terms.

Read More: How Carbon Finance is Supporting MBCI’s Educational Infrastructure

Project 2: Using Carbon Credits to Sustain a Historic Land Return

In 2022, the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa doubled its land base, reclaiming 28,000 acres within its historical reservation boundaries—the most significant land return to a Tribal Nation in U.S. history facilitated through private capital​.

“If there’s one thing I want people to know, this project ensures our future. We have the ability and the freedom to do what we need to do traditionally—harvesting, hunting, and learning. We ingrain ourselves so deeply into the balance of things… respecting not just each other but the wildlife, the plants, the sun, the moon—everything that makes us alive.”

– Jennalee Porter, Cultural Healing Specialist, Bois Forte Band of Chippewa

🎥 Watch: How Bois Forte is Using Carbon Finance to Reclaim Ancestral Lands

Project 3: Investing in a Just Energy Transition

As part of its broader work with tribes, NICC supports Just Transition principles by ensuring that carbon finance strengthens self-determination rather than extracting value. The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) uses carbon finance to drive its energy transition, prioritizing Indigenous leadership, economic equity, and long-term sustainability.

KBIC reinvests carbon revenue into community-driven initiatives:

• Hiring a Sustainability Specialist – A full-time role funded by carbon revenue to lead energy transition efforts and conservation planning.
• Expanding Solar Energy & Energy Efficiency – Investments in solar power and energy efficiency upgrades are lowering energy costs for tribal households.
• Protecting Forests & Strengthening Climate Resilience – Ensuring KBIC lands remain natural carbon sinks while preserving biodiversity.

By integrating land stewardship with energy transition, KBIC demonstrates how carbon finance can create lasting economic and environmental benefits for Indigenous communities, on their terms.

🎥 Watch: How KBIC uses carbon finance to restore forests, lower energy costs, and build a sustainable future.

An Equitable Conservation Finance Model

The National Indian Carbon Coalition (NICC) is reshaping conservation finance by ensuring that Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities own, manage, and benefit from their nature-based resources. Unlike traditional carbon offset projects that extract value from Indigenous lands without returning economic benefits, NICC’s approach ensures that climate finance strengthens tribal sovereignty, financial resilience, and cultural preservation.

These projects are more than environmental investments—they invest in Indigenous self-determination, land justice, and intergenerational sustainability.

By aligning conservation finance with the principles of inclusive capitalism, NICC ensures that climate solutions are profitable but also just, equitable, and beneficial to those who have stewarded the land for generations. NICC’s model proves conservation finance can drive economic and environmental justice, offering a scalable, ethical investment blueprint for people and the planet.

To learn more or support NICC’s work, visit https://www.indiancarbon.org/