In 2022, a 15-year-old girl from Kimana stepped up to the starting line at the Maasai Olympics. Running barefoot, Josephine Sembeyo Mancha won the women's 800-meter race by such an extraordinary margin that she caught the attention of a local athletics coach.

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On October 22, more than 140 friends and supporters of Big Life Foundation gathered at a private venue in New York City for a special evening celebrating conservation, community, and the people working to protect the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem.

The evening began with a lively reception, bringing together longtime supporters and new friends before guests gathered in the gallery for a program offering a closer look at Big Life's work in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania.

The program opened with a screening of Amboseli Forever, Big Life's new five-minute film celebrating the extraordinary wildlife, landscapes, and communities of the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem, and the collaborative conservation efforts helping to protect them.

Following the film, guests heard directly from two of Big Life's leaders on the ground: Chief Operating Officer Craig Millar and Commanding Officer Francis Legei, who traveled from Kenya to share their experiences and perspectives. Moderated by Paul Brady, News Director at Travel + Leisure, who has visited Big Life's area of operation, the conversation offered insights into the challenges and successes of protecting wildlife while supporting the communities who share the landscape.

A question-and-answer session gave guests an opportunity to learn more about Big Life's work and the priorities shaping its future. The evening concluded with remarks from Big Life Board Director Mike Silvestrini, who invited guests to play a part in sustaining this important work.

We are deeply grateful to everyone who joined us and helped make the evening possible. Special thanks to our generous sponsor Energea, the Big Life staff who traveled to New York and helped bring the evening to life, and our dedicated Host Committee:

Temple St. Clair* & Paul Engler
Boo & Meta Hausser
Nancy Lorenz & Doug Schwalbe
Roger Altman
Leila Straus
Jon Cummings* & Holly Hegener
Claudine Cohen* & David Rabins

*Big Life Foundation Board Members

Above all, we're grateful for the opportunity to connect our supporters more closely with the people and places at the heart of Big Life's mission. The dedication of our rangers, field staff, and community partners makes this work possible every day, and the commitment of our supporters helps ensure it continues.

Thank you for being part of Big Life's story.

Watch Amboseli Forever →

📸: Susan Magnano

When a young vulture's nest came crashing down in Kimana Sanctuary, Big Life's rangers stepped in to give this amazing bird a second chance.

Protecting wildlife starts with taking care of the people who protect it.

Across the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem, Big Life’s rangers work from 33 strategically positioned outposts.

For many children in the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem, getting an education starts with simply getting to school.

That can mean walking upward of 15-kilometers,

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Aerial patrols in an ultralight plane like our Super Cub are one of the best ways to monitor the vast, remote corners of the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem.

The Cub’s-eye view allows us to understand seasonal livestock and wildlife movements, spot suspicious activity like charcoal kilns, poaching camps, and illegal land development, and facilitate large operations like wildlife collaring or translocations.

On a recent patrol over Mbirikani ranch, Craig Millar, pilot and Big Life’s Chief Operating Officer, spotted a herd of around thirty elephants, including three of the four elephants we collared back in 2025.

We estimate there to be around 80 elephants living on Mbirikani. They spend most of their time in the lava forests and thick acacia bushland, getting their water from community boreholes in the dead of night. They are skittish and prone to taking off quickly when approached by people, the opposite of the relaxed, tourist-tolerant herds found in Amboseli.

That’s why being able to keep an eye on them from the sky is so useful.

In the little more than one year of tracking data we’ve gathered, one male travelled down into Tsavo West, but for the most part, these elephants live almost entirely outside of protected areas playing a constant game of chess moving around humans and livestock herds, and both sides coexist with remarkably little conflict.

The more we understand how these elephants use the landscape, the better equipped we are to protect them and the communities they live alongside. Thanks to this data we have gained invaluable insights, which will better inform our ranger activities and habitat protection efforts.

📸: Joshua Clay