Big Life rangers are responsible for a number of vital conservation gains for the Greater Amboseli ecosystem. But those gains are only possible because of the dedication of each individual. One such individual is Senior Sergeant Ole Mpumpu.

Born and raised in the town of Kimana, in the shadow of Kilimanjaro, Mpumpu received no formal education, but was determined to find his place in the world. Working his way from the bottom up, he now has over 27 years dedicated to his personal and professional mission of protecting wildlife and wild lands.

Mpumpu is currently in charge of four outposts in Kenya near the Tanzania border. These outposts are critically situated in zones with the highest rates of human-wildlife conflict and instances of poaching. Along with his fellow rangers, Mpumpu conducts extensive daily patrols on foot and by vehicle to gather intelligence, detect and intercept illegal activity, and monitor activity via hidden field cameras to thwart poachers and prevent habitat destruction.

Importantly, Mpumpu also coordinates and leads community rangers to help reduce human-elephant conflict. His team responds quickly to community calls for help, preventing elephants from entering farmland when possible, and pushing them out when not. On rare occasions, Mpumpu has even gone alone to take on the incredibly dangerous task of chasing elephants from farms. His dedication and courage are constantly on display, and he is an incredible role model for new recruits and his fellow rangers.

Senior Sergeant Ole Mpumpu is an exceptional person for many reasons, but his resolute life-long commitment to the flourishing of wildlife, wilds lands, and his community, despite the inherent danger and reality of working as a ranger in the East African bush, is an inspiration to us all.

We are grateful to Sergeant Mpumpu and his incredible dedication to the wildlife, wild lands, and communities of East Africa.

If you are also inspired by his dedication, you can support him and his fellow rangers with sustainable, reliable funding by joining our Ranger Club as a monthly donor. New Ranger Club members, or existing members who increase their giving amount, will be entered to win a bundle of Big Life merchandise. Sign up at biglife.org/monthly-giving.

Photo: Bruce Reynolds

As we approach World Ranger Day on July 31^st, we are excited to introduce you to the man that oversees our wildlife security programs, including our ranger units: Craig Millar.

Craig is Big Life’s Chief Operating Officer (formerly Head of Security), and one of our pilots frequently spotted on aerial patrols. Helping to coordinate all 300+ community rangers, including our mobile units and tracker dogs, is no small feat. To streamline operations, Craig facilitated Big Life’s Radio Room upgrade in 2019 with state-of-the-art security technology, and has spearheaded the rhino recovery work in the Chyulu Hills, as well as developed Big Life’s intelligence network well beyond our area of operation.

A 4^th generation Kenyan, Craig first became involved with Big Life while studying for his zoology degree at Newcastle University UK. He interned with Big Life in 2011, while researching ecosystem predators, focusing on data specific to Big Life’s Predator Compensation Fund.

Years later, he remains steadfastly committed to protecting the Greater Amboseli ecosystem and is an integral part of all Big Life operations across all departments.

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In the lead up to World Ranger Day on July 31^st, we’ll be highlighting Big Life’s rangers and ranger operations. Please support our rangers with sustainable, reliable funding by joining our Ranger Club as a monthly donor. New Ranger Club members, or existing members who increase their giving amount, will be entered to win a bundle of Big Life swag. Sign up at biglife.org/monthly-giving

His name was Igor.

For 49 years, he wandered the plains and woodlands of the Amboseli ecosystem, so relaxed that in 2007, he allowed me to come within a few meters of him to take his portrait.

Two years later, in October 2009, he was killed by poachers for his ivory. 

At that time, on an almost weekly basis, many of Igor’s brethren were being killed in the same way. The Amboseli ecosystem, with one of the most important populations of elephants left in East Africa, was suffering badly due to insufficient funding of both government and the very few nonprofit organizations in the area.

Action had to be taken, and urgently, to fill the gaping hole. I had a series of plans, among which were:

• A local leader on the ground to direct and coordinate operations firsthand, to have an open door and an open ear to the local community. If you don't have the local community on your side, you're screwed. For exchange of information, the bush network beats the social network any day.
• Teams of rangers that were locally hired and fully mobile, with vehicles, radios, and tracker dogs on stand-by. All obvious stuff.
• Cross-border anti-poaching patrols. Most of the poachers were coming over the border from Tanzania, making their kills, and then escaping back with no-one to arrest them on the other side. Teams of rangers on both sides of the borders were needed, working in close communication, to track and pick up any poachers escaping back over into Tanzania. No organization had yet done this, but animals don’t pay attention to borders, nor do poachers, so neither should we.

Back in the US, I visited a collector of my photos and talked her through my plans. She immediately committed $500,000 a year for the first 3 years. We will be forever grateful to that donor (who prefers to remain anonymous). In that one moment, with that money, things became possible.

I had a name: Big Life Foundation. Now I needed that leader on the ground.

There was one renowned conservationist with a great reputation who lived in the Chyulu Hills.

His name was, of course, Richard Bonham.

For 20 years, Richard had been building an effective conservation force in the Chyulu Hills with his Maasailand Preservation Trust. Richard had the same holistic vision of conservation - community rangers, support of the local community, a livestock compensation fund, and more.

I wrote to Richard about my plans and asked him if he knew of anyone to run Big Life. He wrote back that my plans were what he had been shouting from the treetops for years, but had never had the funds to implement. To my surprise and delight, he suggested that he could run Big Life. This was the perfect solution - someone with his reputation and 20 years of experience, running the organization on the ground.

In late 2010, Big Life fired up and went into action with Richard as its co-founder. Igor became Big Life’s unfortunate poster child, and his home, the Greater Amboseli ecosystem, is the place where Big Life today protects 1.6 million acres.

With that first precious funding and subsequent donations, within a year, Big Life was able to hire 85 fully-equipped well-trained rangers plus platoon commanders, construct 12 anti-poaching outposts, purchase 9 anti-poaching patrol vehicles and a Microlight plane for aerial monitoring, and grow an informer network on both sides of the border.

A series of quick dramatic arrests was made of several major poaching gangs, who had been poaching the Amboseli region's elephants for many years. They were tracked down by Big Life’s teams in exactly the way we had planned, through coordination between rangers in both countries, our network of informers, and local community help.

Cut forward to the present day.

Under the stellar, rock-solid leadership of Richard and now also his second-in-command, Craig Millar, Big Life has become the biggest employer in the region, with 500+ local staff.

And so it is that 10 years on…

The number of elephants killed by poachers last year in the areas patrolled by Big Life rangers was ZERO. The number of rhinos killed by poachers last year was ZERO. The populations of elephants, lions, giraffes, cheetahs, and most other species in the ecosystem have all markedly increased since 2010.

However a new threat to elephants was growing in the ecosystem. More elephants were now being killed by farmers whose crops had been destroyed than by poachers. Only a few years ago, 20 elephants were killed in one year in this way. To solve this latest problem, Big Life built over 100 km of electrified fence. As a result, in 2020, just two elephants were killed. And now, because of this, both elephants and farmers live happier, safer lives.

But now, we face the biggest, most complex threat of all. 

And it all comes down to land.

Back in 2010, to combat the poaching, to staunch the flow of blood, we were engaged in a form of triage. By triage, I mean that we had to make brutally hard decisions about which were the most critical areas to set up outposts, knowing that we were leaving many elephants in other areas unprotected until we got more funding. 

Today, we find ourselves dealing with another utterly necessary form of triage: to save the most important land for wildlife through leasing wildlife habitat before it is swallowed up to development.

The ecosystem is being rapidly transformed from community-owned land into private ownership that will shatter the landscape into thousands of 20-60 acre parcels. As the parcels are converted to other uses, wildlife will run out of space. It will be difficult to preserve the ecosystem in its current state. However, there are key wildlife corridors and dispersal areas that we can still protect, which would allow the ecosystem to support wildlife numbers similar to those now.

Today, this is Big Life’s most urgent task. There is no time to waste. Land preservation can be a win-win for all, not just for the animals, but also for the local communities.

Thank you to all of you from me, Richard and everyone at Big Life for being with us on our journey up until now. 

We hope that you will stay with us for the next, most vital stage of our journey.

Nick Brandt

Read the Full 2020 Impact Report.

The population of giraffes across Africa is down to around 110,000. It was about 160,000 as recently as 1985. The Masai giraffe found in East Africa in particular has struggled. It was listed as ‘Endangered’ by the IUCN Red List in 2019, which came as a result of the more than 50% decline over the last three decades, from approximately 71,000 to 35,000.

The numbers are sobering, but most animal populations in Big Life’s area of operation across Greater Amboseli, including elephants, lions and cheetahs, are either stable or increasing, a stark contrast to the dramatic decline in wildlife across much of the rest of Africa. In fact, the local giraffe population has roughly doubled in ten years of Big Life’s work and is now close to 7,000 giraffes. That means that the 1.6 million acres of the Greater Amboseli ecosystem protected by Big Life rangers is actually home to more than 5% of the entire African population.

There is no shortage of threats – ranging from habitat loss (land conversion to agriculture and cutting of trees for charcoal) to poaching (giraffes are highly desired in the bushmeat trade) but thanks to the efforts of Big Life and our ecosystem partners, Amboseli has become one of the strongholds of this species (or sub-species).

It is likely that the continent-wide decline of all giraffe populations will continue, as suitable habitat is consumed by Africa’s fast growing human population. As this happens, healthy giraffe populations such as that of Amboseli become the buffer against extinction, making our work more important with each passing day.

Such work needs your help, and you can make a difference today by making a donation or by joining the Ranger Club with a recurring, monthly gift. Thank you all for your support.