Protecting over 1.6 million acres of wilderness in the Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem of East Africa, Big Life partners with local communities to protect nature for the benefit of all.

Since its inception, Big Life has expanded to employ hundreds of local Maasai rangers—with more than 30 permanent outposts and tent-based field units, 14 patrol vehicles, 2 tracker dogs, and 2 planes for aerial surveillance.

Co-founded in September 2010 by photographer Nick Brandt, conservationist Richard Bonham, and entrepreneur Tom Hill, Big Life was the first organization in East Africa to establish coordinated cross-border anti-poaching operations.

Our Mission

On the ground in Africa, partnering with communities to protect nature for the benefit of all.

Our Vision

Envisioning a world in which conservation supports the people and people support conservation.

What We Do

Using innovative conservation strategies and collaborating closely with local communities, partner NGOs, national parks, and government agencies, Big Life seeks to protect and sustain East Africa’s wildlife and wild lands, including one of the greatest populations of elephants left in East Africa.

The first organization in East Africa with coordinated anti-poaching teams operating on both sides of the Kenya-Tanzania border, Big Life recognizes that sustainable conservation can only be achieved through a community-based collaborative approach. This approach is at the heart of Big Life’s philosophy that conservation supports the people and people support conservation. 

Big Life has established a successful holistic conservation model in the Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem that can be replicated across the African continent.

Please watch our 6-minute video: BIG LIFE IN ACTION.

BIG LIFE 2014, the six-minute film from Big Life Foundation, shows the urgent poaching situation in East Africa right now, and what Big Life is doing on the ground to deal with it.

Released September 2014. Running Time : 6:15

The film features animal footage shot in Amboseli in July 2012 by Nick Brandt, and interviews from earlier in the year with Richard Bonham, as he and his teams pursue poachers within the East African Amboseli ecosystem where Big Life currently operates.