More than 100,000 elephants dead, and countless human lives lost. It’s been a long and bloody journey into a tunnel of darkness, but there is finally, POTENTIALLY, some light at the end of it.

A recent Africa-wide survey showed expected shocking declines in elephant numbers, but figures also indicate that the horrifying pace of illegal killing of elephants since 2008 has stabilized and is now declining a little. 

Why? Because the price of ivory has dropped in the Far East, partly thanks to pressure on demand, and the unprecedented recent commitment made by China to phase out its domestic ivory trade. This has quickly translated into lower prices for poachers, and a reduced incentive to take the risks associated with killing an elephant.

But there is a perilous threat to this hard-won reprieve. The killing was partly triggered in 2008 by one momentous and disastrous decision by the members of CITES, the international treaty that governs the international trade in wildlife products. That fateful year, they allowed a one-off sale of stockpiled ivory from three southern African countries, a move that fed a rapidly growing Chinese demand.

What followed was catastrophic; an explosion of poaching across Africa, the murder of thousands of elephants by poachers, and illegal ivory being sold with false documentation under the guise of legal ivory. 

And now... just as it seems that real progress is being made in the fight against poaching, some countries want to advocate on behalf of the same disastrous policy, ignoring these previous lessons. 

Starting today, the members of CITES will meet in Johannesburg, and the decisions made will have a dramatic impact on the future of Africa’s elephants.

African elephants currently have a split classification by CITES. Populations in Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe are classified under Appendix II, which allows international trade, but under strict conditions. Elephants across the rest of the continent are classified under Appendix I, which completely prohibits commercial international trade. There is currently a global moratorium on ivory sales that started at the time of the last sale in 2008 and will run for nine years, ending in 2017. 

Namibia and Zimbabwe, backed by other southern African states, are proposing to have their populations classified as unqualified Appendix II, which would allow for future trade under an agreed ivory trade mechanism. On the opposite side of the debate is a 29-member block of African states that is proposing to move all elephant populations onto Appendix I, completely eliminating the option of international trade.

It is hard to predict the outcome. The EU, a critically-important voting bloc, has shown worrying support for southern African states’ proposals for sustainable-usage (read trade) policies, and little support for complete closure of domestic ivory markets across the world.

Of course, there will always be some misguided people trying to argue that the way for elephants to survive is to legalize the ivory trade. There was article yesterday in The Guardian, of all places, arguing for legalizing the ivory trade, when it has already been shown to only make things much worse. 

This is not the time to be talking about legitimizing the ivory trade. It would be a truly tragic step in the wrong direction. An unequivocal global ban on ivory needs to happen NOW, before it is too late.

It’s happened time and again throughout history; humans have either consumed a species into extinction or stood by and let it happen.

But this time it’s different, or we hope it will be. The world is well aware of the threat faced by rhinos and people are standing up everywhere to protect the increasingly few that remain. Here in the Amboseli ecosytem Big Life, in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), is working to protect a small population of critically endangered, wild (unfenced) Eastern black rhino. Through financial support from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Chester Zoo, Save the Rhino International, Zoological Society of London, and others, we provide round the clock security for this globally significant population.

Just three months ago, Tim, the biggest tusker in the ecosystem, was speared. For the second time. He had once again raided crops in an area of wildlife habitat increasingly compromised by the invasion of farmland, motivating the farmer to hurl a spear in frustration.

Fortunately, rangers from Big Life and Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) units, and Amboseli Trust for Elephants (ATE) research staff initiated searches. Aerial surveillance was deployed. After three hours, Tim was spotted from the air. Thanks to the fantastic response of everyone involved- along with Big Life, ATE, KWS, DSWT, and Tawi Lodge- enough manpower and vehicles were on hand to quickly and safely roll Tim onto his correct side for treatment. Tim, now 47 years old and first named by Cynthia Moss of ATE, got to live another day.

7 billion people in the world, each with a personality. As few as 450,000 elephants in the world, each with a personality. And yesterday one of those elephants was in trouble.

We know him as Tofauti, which means different in Swahili, and he is a regular in Big Life’s core area. He was spotted by a staff member from Great Plains Conservation, an important local tourism partner of Big Life Foundation, and it was a depressingly familiar prognosis. A spear wound in his rear, likely delivered as he ran from a farmer’s field.

Thankfully, the ever-dependable KWS and David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust vet unit was quick to respond and the elephant was darted from a helicopter, treated, and back on his feet within hours.

Today is World Elephant Day, and should be a day to reflect not only on elephants as a species, but on the fact that each one is different. Just like humans they have emotions, families and fights. Protecting these animals is a responsibility, not a choice.

In 2003, the Kilimanjaro lions living on Mbirikani Group Ranch were nearly extinct. There were less than 10 alive.

In the Amboseli ecosystem, the mainstay of the economy is rearing livestock. Lions, being the opportunists that they are, literally lick their chops at the sound of cattle bells, because it signifies a potential meal. Unfortunately, it also signifies the loss of a valuable asset to the cattle owner, who might retaliate and kill the predator responsible, either with spears or poison.

This ongoing conflict between man and lion is one of the main reasons the African lion population has gone into free fall from 200,000 to less than 20,000 in the last two decades and still falling. There are less than 2,000 in Kenya.

Facing imminent extinction of the local lion population, Big Life launched the Predator Compensation Fund, which compensates the local Maasai for the loss of their livestock to predators, including lions, cheetah, hyena, leopard and others.  With the fund in place, the killing stopped immediately.

As a result, the Kilimanjaro lions in the Amboseli ecosystem are thriving, and one of the only lion populations in Africa that is growing. Today, we have over 150 lions, and many new litters of cubs this season.

As we celebrate these incredible animals for World Lion Day, please considering making a donation to support our predator protection programs.

The place is like a lost world, inhospitable and untamed. Every bush has thorns that tear at unclothed pieces of flesh; the volcanic rock underfoot is sharp as razors and eats ranger boots for breakfast.

This is the world that Kipalero Lenkilasi and his team spend their days protecting. It is home to a small and secretive population of Eastern black rhino that few of them have ever even laid eyes on.

It takes a lot of effort to protect something that you can’t see, and even more dedication. The men working in this area have the second in spades, and put in huge amounts of the first. And thanks to a growing partnership with Zoological Society of London, we are increasingly recognizing them for the work that they do, something that goes largely unnoticed by the rest of of the world.

GPS devices monitor the time and distance walked on daily patrols, allowing ranger commanders to more effectively plan their teams’ patrols (image bottom), as well as identify the best performing rangers.

The first ranger to receive this award was Kipalero Lenkilasi (image top), who started off as a cook and later became a ranger, working his way up into a senior leadership position in his unit. It is men like Kipalero that dedicate their lives to protect the treasures of our natural world, something that deserves some thought this week leading up to World Ranger Day on July 31st.

Killing frenzies have happened before, and they will undoubtedly happen again. 

In this case a pride of lions discovered 134 goats lost in a forest, and all hell broke lose. The result was at least 53 dead livestock.

Another week, another huge bull elephant with a spear in it.

This time his name was Ulysses, an elephant well known to the Amboseli Trust for Elephants (ATE). After receiving the call from ATE Big Life got a plane in the air and was able to first locate Ulysses, and then guide the ATE ground team to him.

It’s been a year since the gunshots in the darkness. The rangers searched high and low and didn’t find any carcasses, but nor could they find any sign of the black rhino Tara and her young calf.

For three months the rangers combed her home range, searching for any clue that they were still alive, but there was never any good news. Time passed and we slowly and sadly accepted that poachers had likely killed the two.

You smell… Everyone does. And more importantly, everyone smells different.

That’s how Bonnie, Clyde, and Didi would find you. Working in shifts, the Big Life dog team would track you as fast as you could move on foot. Bonnie and Clyde, the new bloodhound puppies, are now eight months old and have the vigor of youth. Didi, who was originally found at a rescue shelter, has the experience and cunning of a veteran.

They’re a formidable team, and more so after returning from a few months of training with the Ol Jogi ranch dog unit. Ol Jogi has one of the best dog teams in the business, and the three Big Life dogs and their handlers soaked it all up.

The Big Life team is now back in Amboseli, and itching to test their newly polished skills on a live track. Until that happens, it’s back to daily training and exercise regimens. With huge thanks to Ol Jogi, this is now a team that poachers have even greater reason to fear.

There’s no politics like lion politics. The biggest males battle it out for the most produtive territories, and the affections of the females within them. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does the world shakes. Last year Big Life was excited to share news of the birth of seven lion cubs to two females in one part of the ecosystem. It was another step in the rebuilding of a local lion population that was previously decimated by traditional killings and retaliation for livestock predation. Prides were finally starting to form again, a huge testament to the success of the Big Life livestock compensation program, and the work of our local partners Lion Guardians. But one night things fell apart for this pride. Two new males arrived in the territory, which they claimed swiftly by kicking out the father of the cubs. The mothers had no option but to flee or have their cubs killed by the newcomers. For months they were gone. But a couple of weeks ago the two females were back, with five surviving cubs that were now big enough to introduce to the new males. Hopefully the newcomers will now hold this particular territory for years to come, and make their own contribution to the lion population of Amboseli. With stability, lion populations can grow rapidly. But to achieve this natural order you need to limit human killing. That is what the Big Life livestock compensation program has done, and there is nothing better than watching the results growing up in front of us.

The mid-night sting is complete, the rangers are calming down after the adrenaline rush of action. The ivory dealer is in handcuffs and no one has been hurt. Now what?

Conservation agencies across Africa have been frustrated time and again after risky and often expensive operations lead to the arrest of a poacher, but weak laws, corruption, and judiciaries with a poor knowledge of wildlife crimes let the bad guys walk. These same people are sometimes even caught again. 

So having eyes and ears in the courtrooms is critical. Big Life has a prosecutions officer who attends all wildlife poaching court cases, and we are seeing evidence of improvement around us. Two ivory dealers who were arrested by Big Life late last year were recently sentenced to three years in prison (without option of a fine), and a suspect caught earlier this year with 95kg of ivory (pictured here) is being held on a bond of $200,000. A few years ago both of these outcomes would have been unimaginable.

Kenya has seen decreases in elephant poaching for the last three years, and Big Life is proud to have been part of this success. It’s not rocket science, catch the poachers and punish them, and you will start to deter poaching.

We don’t know how the baby elephant got separated from his mother, but being blind can’t have helped.

He was discovered wandering alone on Saturday afternoon byAmboseli Trust for Elephants(ATE), and Big Life immediately sent a team of rangers to help. 

The young elephant, only about 5 months old, was given a safe place to spend the night at the ATE camp. The following morning, the ever-reliable The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust(DSWT) flew a team down to collect the baby elephant and take him back to their orphanage in Nairobi. There, he will receive proper care and a second chance at life. 

It’s another sad case of an elephant losing his family, but we at Big Life are grateful for our partners, such as ATE and DSWT, and the work they are doing, all of which dovetails so well with our own.

This weekend saw a colourful celebration at the Big Life headquarters in Amboseli. The stars of the show were the sixteen rangers who graduated last month from an intensive three-month paramilitary course run by the Kenya Wildlife Service. But just as important was the attendance of their families and local leaders.

Proudly on show was the trophy received by Big Life ranger Sembeke for his award of ‘Best Leader’ on the course. Huge congratulations to him and all of the other rangers for passing this test, and Big Life looks forward to their hugely important contributions to protecting the wildlife of Amboseli. Thanks again to International Fund for Animal Welfare - IFAW who kindly funded the training costs for ten of these rangers.

A window falling out of your plane on take-off is not ideal. A gauge stuck in the red whilst flying is not great either. An engine failure mid-flight is the worst of all. However, that had become the norm flying the old Big Life Super Cub over the last few years. 

Fortunately, enough people seemed to care whether I lived or died that they decided enough was enough. An appeal was made to one of Big Life's most generous donors in the US, and they immediately responded by donating towards two-thirds of the cost of a replacement plane. The prize money for the Tusk Prince William Lifetime Achievement Conservation Award made up the difference.

A 12-year-old Top Cub came on the market in Arizona, and she only had 280 hours on her, so in plane terms was like new, and we snapped her up.

It took about a year of headaches to navigate the labyrinth of red tape and shipping lanes, get her wings back on, and have her re-registered in Kenya.

The best Christmas present I have ever had, she certainly is the sweetest Cub I have flown. She jumps into the air more like a helicopter than an airplane, using hardly any runway, which is useful when most landings and take-offs are on ground that never comes close to resembling an airstrip. Even more important, she can fly at about about 35 miles an hour, making it easy to observe wildlife and support our rangers on the ground.

So a huge thank you to our life-saving Big Life supporters and Tusk, who made it possible to put one of the most important tools in field conservation back into our toolbox.

When an elephant falls to poachers it’s the end of a life, but the start of something else: a high stakes game of hide and seek.

The poachers will often have the advantage of a head start, and the seekers need every tracking tool available.

Enter the most sophisticated technology of them all: a nose. And not just any nose, a bloodhound dog has more scent receptors than any other breed. And so we’re very excited to have two of these outstanding noses joining the Big Life team.

These innate skills will complement the stamina and tenacity of Deedee, the current Big Life tracker dog who was rescued from a Nairobi shelter. The new pups were born only two hours drive from Big Life HQ, and should be well suited to local conditions.

They are still very young, their days a blur of chasing each other around and collapsing for a nap in between. These boisterous bundles, one male and one female, have not yet been named and we are waiting to learn more about their characters before we do so.

The pups will spend the next few months of their lives getting to know their handlers and doing basic obedience training, after which they will begin a more intensive training program that will turn them into one of the most useful tools in the fight against poaching, alongside the Big Life tracker dog team operating in Tanzania.

To a dog, tracking becomes a game. To us, it’s the difference between putting an elephant killer behind bars or not. As it turns out, man and elephant have a best friend in common.

“Do you wear underpants beneath your Maasai dress?”

An awkward start to a Q&A session, but one of the more humorous questions that Daniel ole Sambu, a Maasai tribesman and Big Life staff member, received from one of the 2600 school children he addressed during a recent trip to Hong Kong and Singapore.

But there were far more heart-wrenching questions than humorous ones, says Sambu. Many of the children were still under the impression that elephant tusks were simply “collected in the forest,” and no matter how gently Sambu conveyed his message of how tusks are actually obtained, many of the children had tears in their eyes.

Sambu’s visit was organised by The Elephant Society. “It was the trip of a lifetime,” he says, “but also a call of duty for me. I wanted to do the best that I could to represent the rangers and local Maasai community who are working so hard to conserve wildlife.”

While in Hong Kong, Sambu joined Project C:Change in a march through the streets to demonstrate against the ivory trade, which is still legal in the city. Confronted with rows of ivory shops and consumers negotiating inside for the best price, Sambu was shocked. “We see these things in documentaries and we didn’t believe it, but I was there and saw it with my own eyes. It is so bad.”

Thankfully, these eye-openers were balanced by moving acts of support. After one school talk, a young boy walked up to Sambu and gave him $4, telling him that this was his donation and that he would do more fundraising to support Big Life. That $4 can buy two days of field rations for a Big Life ranger.

At a policy level, there also seems to be positive change in Hong Kong. Lawmakers from the Hong Kong Legislative Council unanimously passed a motion on December 3, 2015 calling for the Hong Kong government to legislate for a commercial ban on ivory trading. Although non-binding, this high-level pressure is unprecedented in Hong Kong.

It seems that things are changing for the better, however slowly. In the meantime, Big Life will continue our work here in East Africa to make sure that as many elephants as possible will survive the poaching crisis.

November, one year ago. Rangers at the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania received one of the dreaded calls: an elephant had been killed by poachers.

The anti-poaching unit set off immediately, but they weren’t alone. With them were two remarkable hounds, Jerry and Chester from the Big Life tracker dog unit.

Within hours, sniffing through the wilderness, the conservation canines had tracked the scent from the elephant carcass right up to a suspected poacher’s house. This eventually led to the arrest of all the poachers involved.

At that time, these calls were coming almost weekly, but a year and a string of arrests later, elephant poaching has dropped to almost nothing in the area.

The dogs, managed by Big Life’s implementing partners in Tanzania, Honeyguide Foundation, have been so successful that they’ve just about put themselves out of the elephant-poacher-catching business. Thanks to their terrifying reputation, they are now focused primarily on eliminating bushmeat poaching and tracking community criminals.

The deterrent effect that their success has had is astounding. Poachers know how hard it is to outsmart those noses, and it has pushed the risk element too high. Not only this, but it has set an encouraging example of cooperation between an NGO, the Tanzanian government, and the communities in which the dogs work.

Jerry and Chester have come a long way since they first started working on the Tanzanian side of the greater Amboseli ecosystem in 2011, and it seems that they are only just getting started. We sure are glad they’re on our team!

Photo credit: Felipe Rodriguez

The dead flies are the first sign, their blue bodies in glittering piles, reflecting the sun. Followed by that sinking feeling, discovering that the poisoned cow had been eaten by more than just flies. On Wednesday morning, a Big Life informer reported that multiple livestock had been killed the night before in a place north of the Amboseli ecosystem. All of the owners seemed to be calm, and noone was talking about retaliating. Our informer did not notice at the time that one cow carcass was missing. The next piece of information was about a poisoned cow carcass, which prompted a search of the area for predator carcasses. Unfortunately, Big Life and Kenya Wildlife Service rangers found three dead lions—two of them young cubs. No other carcasses have been found, and tracks indicate that at least one survived, but there were four other lions in the pride who remain unaccounted for. This tragedy comes in the wake of another lion poisoning in the Maasai Mara only a few days ago, and sadly was almost inevitable. The lions had moved far north of their core ecosystem and outside of Big Life’s area of operation, into an area where people see zero benefit from the existence of wildlife. As much as we wish it were different, we understand exactly what happened. These are deeply complex issues, with the welfare of people and wildlife on the line. Unfortunately, there are some places in Africa where wildlife has a chance, and others where the balance has tipped too far away from natural systems. Our only hope is to try to keep the animals we protect away from these areas, or to secure enough funding for the expansion of Big Life’s Predator Compensation Fund. With a larger area of operation, we can not only protect more animals, but also more effectively protect those who unknowingly stray outside the boundaries of the current safe haven.

Poison. It’s everywhere, used across the world to kill pests on crops and livestock. But in Africa those same products are used to kill lions.

This last weekend, we saw another sad example of this in the Maasai Mara of Kenya. One lioness confirmed dead, and others still sick or unaccounted for. These lions were from a pride made famous by TV crews, but countless other victims don’t make it onto your news feed.

Why is this happening? Because lions kill livestock.

Poisoning is an easy form of revenge, but it’s not the only way to do it. Just days ago one of the remaining desert adapted lions of Namibia was shot dead by a farmer for the same reason.

There is an ongoing debate on what to do about it, but here in Amboseli Big Life has developed a simple solution: livestock compensation. Through a community agreement, Big Life pays people a portion of their economic losses to predators, so long as no predators are killed in retaliation. It’s give and take on both sides.

And it works. The Amboseli lion population has been increasing for the past decade, a beacon of hope at a time when an IUCN assessment indicates an estimated 59% drop in sample populations across East Africa over the last 20 years. This is a testament to the success of compensation, and the complimentary work of other groups such as the Lion Guardians.

Elsewhere in Africa, when a lion kills a cow, people reach for their weapons. In Amboseli, they reach for their phones to call the Big Life compensation officers. This is the new normal, and it has forged a future for lions in the ecosystem.

Daniel Ole Sambu continues his visit to East Asia, representing Big Life Foundation and the Maasai of Amboseli. With assistance from The Elephant Society, Daniel has been visiting local schools and engaging with more than 2000 children. They’ve been discussing the impact of the ivory trade on elephant populations in Africa.

Daniel is pictured here with one such school group as they “Say No to Ivory.”

We hope that these kids will bring the change of tomorrow. For today, the goal is to keep building pressure for a complete ban on the trade of ivory.

The explosion rippled through the Maasai homesteads in the early hours of the morning. Kinyaku Konee sat bolt upright in bed, knowing instinctively that his world had shifted in some way.

He was out at first light, and a walk down to his livestock-watering tank confirmed his fears. The structure was shattered, massive chunks of stone and cement strewn around, the tank emptied. 

This week Big Life has been to the heart of the market for ivory in Hong Kong. One of our program coordinators in Kenya, Daniel Ole Sambu, participated in a march with WildAid Hong Kong and the Elephant Society to protest ivory sales, asking the government to ban domestic trade.

Sambu, dressed in traditional Maasai clothing, walked with protestors through the heart of Hong Kong’s ivory market in Sheung Wan. After, he commented to the South China Morning Post: “It's horrible because all I see are dead elephants.”

As for why Hong Kong matters, Sambu said, “Hong Kong is considered a transit market for ivory so we are telling Hong Kong that even the end market will have to find somewhere else if they ban it. So it has to start with Hong Kong saying that we don't want anything related to ivory."

Read more: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1881629/kenyan-maasai-marchers-call-hong-kong-ivory-ban

Her right paw ensnared in a poacher’s deadly trap, the cheetah had nothing left to do but to wait and die. Earlier last month, she walked into the wire snare just outside of the Enduimet Wildlife Management Area in northern Tanzania, which borders on the Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya.  As news of the incident spread quickly in nearby villages, a band gathered and set off to spear and kill the entangled cat. Fortunately, a farm manager contacted the Big Life supported rangers from Enduimet just in time, who soon intervened and saved the cheetah.  With support from Tanzania’s Wildlife Division, the Kilimanjaro Animal CREW rescue team later arrived at the scene and eventually freed the cheetah and transported her to their rehabilitation facilities, where she is expected to make a full recovery and eventually be reintroduced into the wild.

Justus Nzioki was 13 years old when he killed his first rhino. And it wasn’t the last, as Justus later turned to poaching to earn a living.

“It was a rush,” says Justus. “I didn’t feel bad, I felt courageous, because I knew I was making enough money to feed my family. But then one day I heard a rhino crying, screaming, just like a human, and I was haunted. I just knew in my heart that there had to be another way to survive.”

“We have to go,” Patrick says as he starts the engine. “An elephant has been speared in her back, she’s limping, and she’s entered the park.” And so it began, the start of another elephant injury treatment, unfortunately an all too common occurrence as humans and elephants continue to compete for scarce resources. The elephant was discovered by rangers on patrol, and the rescue team swung into action. Jamie Joseph from savingthewild.com was there to capture all the action, read the full story HERE.

The elephant named Tom is no stranger to the soft pop of a dart gun. One year ago this big bull was darted and treated for cancerous growths on his scrotum. Today he was darted again, but this time for something altogether unnatural – a spear wound.  After first seeing that Tom was in trouble, rangers and staff from Great Plains Conservation set up watch at the local waterhole. Tom was visiting routinely and the The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust was quick to provide assistance, flying a Kenya Wildlife Service vet into the area yesterday evening. The wait began, but Tom didn’t turn up for his usual evening drink. We were worried that he might have left the area, so it was a huge relief when he turned up this morning.  The operation got off to a bad start when Tom fell badly after the dart went in, but the team managed to pull him onto his side with a vehicle. The vet then cleaned the infected wound and Tom recovered from the anaesthetic without trouble. It’s almost certain that this spearing is the result of the on-going conflict between farmers and elephants raiding their crops. Big Life has ranger teams that operate day and night to assist communities in dealing with elephants, and were it not for their tireless work we would undoubtedly be treating many more injuries like this.

 If there is one thing that humans do well, it’s making up stories. For instance, the striped hyena is believed by many communities to be a killer of small children and robber of graves. Not so, this secretive animal does its best to avoid human contact, but that hasn’t stopped humans. Persecuted across its rapidly diminishing range, the striped hyena is now classified as near threatened by the IUCN, with fewer than 10,000 adult individuals believed alive. Although little is known, we believe that there is a healthy population in the areas protected by Big Life’s predator compensation program. Even so, this misunderstood animal causes little to no economic damage here, compared to its bigger, spotted cousin that is responsible for more than 50% of the livestock killed by predators. To find out more about predator compensation, or support the program, please visit the ‘Wildlife Protection’ tab on our website. #WildlifeWednesday #PCFworks

No way, that is, until community members discovered her and notified rangers nearby. Acting quickly, the team lassoed a rope around her horns and pulled her to safety. The little wildebeest was last seen trotting off with her herd, having hopefully learned a lesson about gravity.

 Patrolling on foot in the African bush can be a dangerous business, and some of the Big Life rangers can show you the scars to prove it. You never know what’s ahead of you, so when a giraffe stares, you stop. They have spotted something you haven’t.   Sadly, commercial game meat poachers are targeting these gentle creatures. They are big animals, so it’s a high return on poaching investment, and the meat is sought after in certain communities. So while giraffes are watching out for all the animals of the bush, the Big Life rangers are watching out for them. And the Kenyan courts are increasingly coming to the rescue. Our rangers recently caught five poachers who had killed a giraffe. The case has not yet gone to trial but bail has been set at roughly $8,000 per person; a fact that will hopefully make poachers think twice about killing these beautiful animals in the Amboseli ecosystem in future.  #WildlifeWednesday #Giraffe

Today is ‪#‎WorldRangersDay‬. We are honored and humbled by the work wildlife rangers conduct all over the world to protect nature for the benefit of all. 

Big Life employs hundreds of local Maasai rangers across the Amboseli-Kilimanjaro-Tsavo ecosystem. These rangers put their lives on the line every day they're in the field to protect their communities. They are supported by Big Life, their families, their community leaders, and a broad network of informers as they work to prevent wildlife crimes and track down poachers across the African bush. 

Cecil's passing is a tragedy, as are the untimely demises of all animals facing threats from poachers and hunters today across Africa. As we learned of this tragedy, we couldn't help but think of the predators that call our ecosystem around Amboseli home. Our spirits were lifted to see these two cheetah brothers this morning, east of Amboseli. Kenya doesn't allow hunting of wildlife as some other countries, like Zimbabwe, do. But these animals are still under threat, from poaching and from retaliation from local communities who may lose livestock to them from time to time. Our Predator Compensation Fund supports these communities, and thus protects the lions, hyenas, and cheetahs like these two from persecution. Perhaps seeing them today will lift your spirits too.   #PCFworks #WildlifeWednesday #RIPCecil

Pungent smoke fills the air, a sickly combination of burning flesh and kerosene. The rangers rake more wood over the nine vulture carcasses; all traces of the poison must be burnt.

But the vultures weren’t the only casualties; the poison also struck its intended target. A week prior, a pride of lions killed two cows. Someone came back for the skins and meat, but left poisoned carcasses behind. At least one lion died as a result.

This poisoning was carried out on Mbirikani, which is covered by the Big Life compensation program, but by members of neighbouring Merueshi, who do not get compensated for livestock killed by wild predators. Mbirikani elders reacted by denying grazing access to Merueshi cattle, and, although this is unlikely to last, it is a huge statement in a land of pastoralists.

The suspects, the cow owner and his sons, have been arrested and charged, and we await the outcome. But unfortunately nothing changes the end result: dead animals.

Poison is a scary substance. It is cheaply available to EVERYONE. A person can kill easily, with little chance of being discovered. It is an insidious threat that cannot be fought this with boots on the ground. Rather, you need ways to change how people think, and behave, whether they’re being watched or not. And Big Life’s compensation program does exactly that.

With limited funding, we can only protect a finite number of lions. But your support is critical in making sure that we can at least do this.

Please support Big Life’s predator compensation program at: www.biglife.org/donations

The front line of wildlife protection can be a dangerous place. From machete-wielding poachers to buffalos lurking in the thick bush, being a ranger is not for the faint-hearted. Facing this, it is critical that the Big Life rangers know what to do when things go wrong. With generous support from The Thin Green Line Foundation and African Wildlife Foundation, one dedicated trainer has just spent two weeks giving 201 rangers (188 from Big Life and 13 from Kenya Wildlife Service) a crash course in how to keep someone alive.  Working in remote environments where help might be hours away, this training could save a ranger’s life in future, and nothing is more important to us.

In stark terms, contrast and compare:

In the Enduimet Wildlife Management Area of Tanzania, 2 lions are dead this year already—speared after killing livestock—with an estimated 34 lions killed since 2009.

Meanwhile, just across the border in Kenya, under Big Life’s Predator Compensation program, NO lions have been killed this year by participating communities. Only two lions were killed in 2014, following three years of no deaths in communities covered by the program.

Unfortunately, lions don’t respect international borders, so some of those lions in Enduimet came from the protected Kenya side. Big Life, in partnership with the Honeyguide Foundation, funds anti-poaching operations in Enduimet, but there is no compensation program in place yet. Additional funding is needed for that.

These photos show the real life impact of the Kenyan compensation program. In 2013, we posted a photo sharing our excitement at the “coming out” of 4 new lion cubs. Earlier this year, we shared the photo on the right of the same 4 cubs, now teenagers.

Under our protection, these cubs have managed to defy all odds and survive those early years when mortality rates can be as high as 75%. This is particularly poignant, as it is a great example of the success of the predator compensation program we initiated 12 years ago, which has helped to bring the lions of the Amboseli ecosystem back from the brink of extinction.

Our solution makes perfect sense to livestock owners. If you can prove that a wild animal killed your livestock, Big Life will pay you a percentage of the value of that livestock. BUT, if a member of your community kills a predator, then neither you nor anyone in your community gets paid for a two-month period. It’s an agreement that keeps livestock owners happy, and lions alive.

Africa’s predators have a rough ride ahead, and conservation interventions need to somehow balance the costs that local people incur through living with these animals. The Big Life compensation program has proven to be a very successful way of doing that, and the results are clear.

However, as illustrated in Tanzania, we desperately need to expand our compensation program to protect predators as they move into neighbouring areas, as well as continue to fund the protection of lions in Amboseli.

You can help to keep lions and other predators alive, please take the time to donate to the Predator Compensation Fund at www.biglife.org/donations.

It’s a simple equation. And we are seeing the repeated results in the Enduimet Wildlife Management Area of Tanzania. Two lions are dead this year already, speared after killing livestock, bringing the total to an estimated 34 lions killed since 2009. This is in stark contrast to the situation across the border in Kenya. NO LIONS have been killed this year by communities participating in the Big Life compensation scheme, which protects all predators over an area of approximately 700,000 acres. Only two lions were killed in 2014, following three years of no deaths. Our solution makes perfect sense to livestock owners. If you can prove that a wild animal killed your livestock, Big Life will pay you a percentage of the value of that livestock. BUT, if a predator is killed in your area, then neither you nor anyone in your community gets paid for a two-month period. It’s an agreement that keeps livestock owners happy, and lions alive.  Working together with Lion Guardians, our lion conservation efforts have been remarkably successful. But we desperately need to expand compensation to protect predators as they move into neighbouring areas, as well as consolidate the existing program in Amboseli.  You can help to keep lions and other predators alive, please take the time to donate to the Predator Compensation Fund at www.biglife.org/donations.

The confirmation is out, Tanzania is bearing witness to a massacre. Despite previous efforts to deny the severity of the situation, last week Tanzanian officials confirmed a catastrophic 60% decline in country-wide elephant numbers since 2009, almost entirely as a result of poaching. 

This equates to about 85,000 elephants, dead. Statistics must always be questioned, but there is no doubt about the scale of the problem.

The losses were not uniform, and were most severe in the famous Ruaha and Selous ecosystems, which lost more than two-thirds of their elephants. In 2009 Ruaha had an estimated 34,000 elephants, which dropped to just 8,000 in 2014. Similarly in the Selous, elephant numbers dropped from almost 45,000 to around 15,000. 

Such numbers leave little room for optimism. But in contrast to the devastation elsewhere, Big Life Tanzania, working through our partners Honeyguide Foundation is seeing positive results where we operate in Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), working closely with communities and supporting rangers.

In the 4 major community-based conservation areas where we operate (Enduimet, Burunge, Randilen and Manyara Ranch) ONLY 2 ELEPHANTS have been poached since operations began in 2013. Although both of the elephants killed were in Manyara Ranch, this figure represents a 95% reduction in poaching since anti-poaching operations began there. This is the result of a joint effort on the ground including Big Life support and other NGO’s, including The Nature Conservancy and African Wildlife Foundation. 

However, there is little doubt that as the southern Tanzania elephant population drops further, the pressure will increase in the north. Big Life and Honeyguide, and others working to save Tanzania’s elephants, are going to need all the help that we can get.

“This is not the time for glib marketing campaigns or gratuitous gloom and doom. It is the time for facts and focus.”

Above is the conclusion of an article by Jane Edge in Africa Geographic magazine, looking at the effectiveness of various elephant protection NGOs across Africa. With the future of the African elephant at stake, donors are often confused by the hundreds of NGOs proclaiming to protect elephants.

Big Life was pleased to be highlighted as an organization worth supporting: 

“With its clear agenda and focused action, Big Life is clearly a model to replicate.”

For Big Life, conservation is about communities. By supporting the local people who coexist with wildlife, sharing land and scarce resources, we work to ensure that that the benefits of conservation extend not only to animals, but to all inhabitants of the ecosystem. This gives local communities a reason to embrace our efforts as their own.

In another far-reaching article posted by Virgin Unite, Jamie Joseph uses Big Life as an example as she explores the importance of alleviating poverty “to reduce the demand and appeal of hunting some of the world’s most beautiful and endangered species.” This approach, at the heart of Big Life’s philosophy, will only become more important as the human population continues to explode across the continent.

“Big Life Foundation has become the benchmark of the good work any NGO can do in the communities of the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem. 

Last week, a double tragedy struck on the northern edge of the Amboseli ecosystem. 

A herd of elephants, driven by the unusually dry conditions that we are experiencing here, strayed into an area that has not had elephants for nearly 35 years. They were in search of water, and found it in a dam dug by a family on their small farm to irrigate crops.

In 2013, we posted the top photo and shared our excitement at the “coming out” of 4 new lion cubs. The photo on the bottom, from just a few weeks ago, is of the same 4 cubs, now teenagers.

Under our protection, these cubs have managed to defy all odds and survive those early years when mortality rates can be as high as 75%. 

Parts of the earth are wild, and parts will never be the same again. Big Life operates in the middle, a place where wildlife and humans live together, both trying to survive. The dry seasons are when the relationship becomes most strained. Stress levels rise and tempers fray, water becomes liquid gold. As a Maasai herdsman, you spend much of your income pumping water for your cattle. Imagine then bringing your thirsty herd to a borehole watering point and finding it empty. Or worse still, the pipes and tanks destroyed by elephant. What do you do? Get angry, and that anger often leads to actions that could end up with an elephant with a spear in it. Now imagine you are an elephant, a thirsty one with a thirsty family. You arrive at the watering point and find it empty. What then? Your sense of smell leads you to a tank, and the only way in is to pull up the pipes or break the tank.  There is a simple solution. In this case everyone can be happy by making separate water points available for elephants away from the cattle troughs. But this involves building a water point, plumbing it and supplying diesel to run the pumps. We have six water points that create conflict between cattlemen and elephant. To build a dedicated water point and plumb it requires about $2,000, then about $10 per day to buy diesel to run the pumps. The rains have failed in many areas this year and the deadly conflicts are inevitable. Can you help us by either building a water point ($2000) or donating to run the pumps for a month ($300)? Please go to www.biglife.org/donations Thank You, Richard Bonham

Man is certainly an ingenious beast, but when it comes to developing new ways to kill he seems to excel himself…  This was confirmed again last week when the Big Life Rapid Deployment Unit, acting on a tip-off, raided the homestead of a known poacher on the border of Chyulu Hills National Park, and unearthed this lethal treasure trove of poachers' tools. What jumps out at me is the mix of new and old methods, all aimed at targeting elephants, rhino and the animals from giraffes to zebras to gazelle that make up the thriving bushmeat trade. On one hand, there are the traditional arrow poisons, thousands of years old. Then the new agricultural poisons, available over the counter, to lace not only arrow heads, but also tempting melons put on the trails used by elephant and rhino. This poacher and his tools are now out of circulation. But right now, there are other lairs out there - hideouts where poachers are preparing for their deadly work. Real success is catching these people before they kill, and no-one is better placed to do this than the Big Life rangers from within these communities.  If you would like to directly support the work of the Big Life rangers, please consider joining the Big Life Ranger Club at www.biglife.org/big-life-ranger-club Richard Bonham

 

There are 7 animals' meat cut up in the accompanying photo. 

There is a clear line between killing out of desperation and killing for profit. On Christmas Eve someone stepped well over that line, and the Big Life rangers were waiting for him on the other side.

The sound of an approaching motorbike started it; the community informer had been right. Rangers lay in wait, quietly in the darkness of the bushveld.  The poacher rode straight into the ambush, carrying the grisly tools and victims of his trade. A bright flashlight (called a Kadoo) for blinding animals at night, and blades to hamstring and then butcher them. Seven antelope carcasses, on their way to market. This was one success from our recent series of cross-border operations, conducted together with rangers from Tanzania and funded by the African Wildlife Foundation, and demonstrates the success of working together across international borders. And for those who believe that all poachers are destitute and starving, take note. Game meat poaching is a business, stealing from those who earn a living from wildlife and tourism, and we will continue to do what we can to stop it. If you would like to support the rangers working to prevent this trade please consider joining the Big Life Ranger Club at biglife.org/big-life-ranger-club

The Maasai Olympics, big for us but small in the grand scheme of things, has touched people around the world, people that want to hear of new ideas and positive change.

From China to the USA, Australia to the UK, the news has gone global. There have been stories by the BBC, NY Times, CNN, Al Jazeera, Wall Street Journal, and many others.

To read one of the more colorful article visit: http://ow.ly/GDbQS

The chanting rippled through the early morning mist, a tangible vibration more than a sound. Maasai warriors preparing to clash, but on a sports field rather than a battleground.

A herd of elephants moved past in the distance, but the young men were too busy painting each other’s faces to notice. In the Amboseli ecosystem of southern Kenya the long-awaited final day of the Maasai Olympics was here, the culmination of a year of conservation education blended with sport.

And so the Maasai Olympics was born, now made possible by a number of local and international stakeholders and supporters. The basic premise is an attempt to engage young men, who might otherwise have been the ones hunting lions, and demonstrate that conservation can mean something other than livestock killed by wild predators.

The Big Life Predator Compensation Fund has already had great success in protecting lions in the ecosystem, complemented by the Lion Guardians program, but the Maasai Olympics is reaching warriors on an unprecedented scale, and trying to help them adapt to changing times. As development continues to wipe cultures clean, it would be a tragedy for this people to lose their songs, but traditional lion killing cannot continue.

And the competition was intense. The winners of the 800m and 5km running events both won trips to next year’s New York marathon (organised by Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust), the winner of the standing high jump soared to a new unbelievable record height of nine feet, and the javelin and club-throw drew excited crowds as always. And crowning a successful day, the Mbirikani warrior manyatta (village) won the overall team prize, taking home a prize breeding bull.

 

In the past, the physical prowess of a warrior manyatta was measured by the number of lion manes hanging on their flagpole. Hopefully from now on it will be measured in the number of medals won at the Maasai Olympics.

 

Elephants may be the mightiest land mammals walking the earth today, but they can be undone by one of the smallest building blocks of life: rogue cells and the cancers that they cause.

Tom is one of the magnificent bulls that patrol the volcanic Chyulu hills, part of the area protected by Big Life, and we see him often enough to have become quite fond of him. A couple of years ago he started to lose condition, and we noticed a swelling between his legs. As it grew it became clear that Tom had cancer of the scrotum.

With assistance from the Kenya Wildlife Service we darted him a year ago, cut away some of the growths and treated the infections. On waking up, he took a very long drink and then disappeared for 6 months. We thought he might have died somewhere, but were overjoyed when he turned up again recently.

The wounds between his legs seemed better, but we needed to get a closer look. Again with assistance from KWS, this time from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust sponsored mobile vet unit, we darted him at the start of the week. The great news is that although the cancer will probably not heal, the tumours have not regrown. The affected area is vastly improved from when we last treated him, and we believe that Tom will live many more years here in the Amboseli ecosystem.

PBS Newshour just ran a segment : RACING TO SAVE KENYA'S WILD ELEPHANTS FROM POACHERS.

Big Life was heavily featured, with interviews with Richard Bonham and ranger, Joseph Meikoki. You can view the entire clip at :http://www.pbs.org/newshour/videos/#115904

Big Life is featured 4:40 into the segment.

Rombo is a long way from anything, an expanse of thick bush where Mt. Kilimanjaro finally gives way to flatter land. Bordered to the east by Tsavo national park, it’s the perfect place to do your poaching, or a convenient passage to the magnificent elephants that lie beyond. Or it was. Our Rombo rangers (supported by African Wildlife Foundation have begun to work more closely with the rangers from Tsavo Pride, and the broader intelligence net is already yielding success. In a combined operation they recently caught three poachers with sacks of gazelle meat, and the grisly tools used for killing. It’s an annual trend that we face; as the dry season intensifies, so does bushmeat poaching. Our other units across the ecosystem have also been active, one man arrested with 5 snares and another two arrested with bows and arrows. In both these cases, we got to them before they killed. Although bushmeat poaching does not get as much media attention, it is equally important to us. This is not killing for the cooking pot; there is a thriving game meat market across Africa, threatening a host of species.  By catching these poachers we deter other potential killers. And this is how we are changing things, by making sure that poaching is not worth the risk of being caught. Jeremy Goss, Big Life Kenya

Carbon is the base of all living things, but dangerous to our planet in the wrong form. We’ve all heard about the carbon credit trading idea; but what does it actually achieve? We didn’t know, until such a scheme came to our part of the world.

The basic tenet: the Chyulu Hills and surrounding grasslands comprise a spectacular ecosystem, well worth protecting. There are rare and endangered species, remnant cloud forests shrouded in mist, and geological delights to be found in the volcanic formations. And more, this area is the fragile key linking the Amboseli and Tsavo ecosystems.

The downsides of destruction of this ecosystem are just as important. Apart from the loss of everything mentioned above, vast amounts of carbon are held in the natural vegetation, all of which would be lost to the atmosphere if the habitat were destroyed, contributing further to the unnatural changing of our global climate. Saving this ecosystem has local as well as global benefits.

Realising this, Wildlife Works has spearheaded a carbon credit project, bringing together a number of partners (of which Big Life is proudly one) representing the interests of different communities in the area. If the project is successful, global polluters elsewhere will be able to offset their carbon emissions by buying carbon credits that will keep Chyulu hills carbon out of the atmosphere.

Incoming funding will have huge climate, community and biodiversity benefits. Amongst many others, the income will support better land management, improved local healthcare, education initiatives, reforestation projects, and a larger and better-equipped local ranger force. The project aims to preserve local habitats, and everything within them – there is surely no better investment.

We’re all excited about this project, and hope the world will be too. It’s a chunky piece of text, but if anyone would like more information on the project, or to make a comment during the public comment period (until the end of July), please go to: 

http://www.climate-standards.org/2014/06/25/chyulu-hills-redd-project/

Weighing in around 5 tons, it’s amazing how quietly an elephant can approach. But the sound of one of these animals destroying your source of income will wake anyone. A herd of elephants can cost you $10,000 in crop destruction in a night. 

That’s why each night - across the ecosystem where farmland meets wildlife habitat - we have teams on the red-eye shift: the darkness following midnight usually brings the most activity. We have dedicated rangers - that respond to calls for help, in vehicles and on motorbikes, and try to get there before the damage is done. We use harmless methods to scare the elephants away from the farms - a combination of bright torches and firecrackers.

In most cases these methods work, but just as you get stubborn humans you get stubborn elephants. These belligerent individuals will actively go for the source of the irritants, and trample anything or anyone in their way. 

Thus it is with huge relief that we thank the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) for translocating one such animal this last week. This individual elephant had killed a person, and was responsible for huge amounts of crop damage. He was doing immeasurable harm to the continued tolerance for his species in this area. The operation was quick and efficient. A dart from a helicopter, a crane-lift on to a truck, and transport to a remote area where he will hopefully be out of trouble.

The poaching crisis may eventually be overcome, but people are not going anywhere, and neither is conflict between elephants and humans. In the past the solution to these ‘problem’ animals was usually a bullet; we salute KWS for investing in keeping these animals alive, and at the same time helping us immensely in managing human-elephant conflict in our areas.

- Jeremy Goss, Big Life Kenya

RELATED LINKS:

Area of Operation/Crop Raiding

“The king of beasts is striding to oblivion and no one is listening.” - Tom Hill, Big Life Predator Compensation Fund Co-Founder

by BRIAN JACKMAN
Edited Version, Courtesy of Tusk Trust

For more than three decades I have woken to the roar of the lion. To me it is music to my ears and its magic never fails. In East Africa they translate it into Swahili. “Hii nchi ya nani?” cry the powerful territorial pride males. “Whose land is this?” Then, as their tumultuous challenge dies away, they answer with a rhythmic coda of rasping grunts that make the air vibrate; yango, yango, yango, mine, mine, mine! And it’s true. Lions are indeed the lords of this land. But for how much longer will their primeval voices continue to echo across the savannah?

“The king of beasts is striding to oblivion and no one is listening.” Those were the words of Tom Hill, the Texan philanthropist who helped to set up the Mbirikani Predator Compensation Fund at Ol Donyo Wuas in Kenya’s Chyulu Hills. There, back in 2001, Masai pastoralists had set about exterminating every lion they could find. “By 2003 our last big pride had gone,” said Hill, “leaving no more than a dozen lions in what experts believe is the very epicentre of their range.”

Luckily for the local lion population, the Predator Compensation Fund (now part of Big Life Foundation’s conservation program) stepped in and managed to stem the tide. Otherwise Ol Donyo Wuas would have lost its lions for good. But this was not an isolated case. All over Africa, lions are disappearing fast.

Twenty-five years ago, 200,000 lions roamed across Africa. Today that figure has shrunk to perhaps as few as 20,000, of which only 3,500 are adult males.

When two top predators – lions and people – compete for the same habitat there can be only one winner, and Dereck Joubert - the distinguished wildlife filmmaker who knows a thing or two about lions - reckons they could vanish from the wild within 15 years.

Squeezed by Africa’s burgeoning human population (more than one billion people and rising), lions are in serious trouble. Killed as stock-raiders, shot by trophy hunters and slaughtered for their body parts, they have been driven from more than 80 per cent of their historical range – including most of the savannah lands which are their most favoured habitat - and have become extinct in 26 countries.

Part of the reason the world doesn’t appreciate the situation is because visitors see lions in tourist hotspots such as the Masai Mara and think they are plentiful everywhere. The truth is that lions need vast areas in which to roam and only a few parks can satisfy their need for space and prey and full protection.

I have always believed that the best hope of securing a future for lions lies with the tourist trade. There is no doubt that Africa’s wildlife is a major attraction and you have only to look at Kenya, where the safari business helps to bring in more than US$3 billion a year as well as employing tens of thousands of people, to realise that eco-tourism is by far the most sustainable way of making wildlife earn its keep. As the old adage has it: if it pays, it stays.

After all, lions are what you come to Africa to see. Not confined behind bars but moving free as the wind across the boundless savannah; and who can fail to be moved by their hypnotic presence? Even at rest, sprawled under a thorn tree, they exude an aura of imminent drama, of latent power barely suppressed, and no matter where you travel, from the Okavango floodplains to the waist-high grasslands of the Masai Mara, the eye hungers for their tawny slinking shapes or the sight of a pride male standing atop a granite kopje, black mane on fire in the morning sun.

Long since perfected in evolutionary terms, these glorious carnivores live in a parallel universe far older than ours, one that we also sprang from but have long since forgotten. They are the most potent symbol of everything in Africa that is wild and special and beautiful. We must not let them disappear.

RELATED LINKS:

Wildlife Protection/Predator Compensation

By Erika Mansourian

 “...an informant had contacted one of Big Life’s commanders who works alongside the village rangers of Enduimet. He knew the poachers’ plans and made the courageous decision to come forward. In the pre-dawn hours, Big Life’s Dog Unit joined forces with Enduimet’s Mobile Unit. The dogs quickly zeroed in on the exact bush the poachers had slept under the night before. The men had barely stretched and rubbed their eyes before they found themselves in custody....”

Read more by downloading the 6 page feature in the latest issue - BELOW

 FD_0506_14Elephants.pdf

RELATED LINKS:

Wildlife Protection/Current Outposts/Tanzanian Dog Unit

There is only so far that a ranger can walk. But there is no limit to the distance that information can travel. 

Two weeks ago, one of our rangers went on leave, only to find a person waiting impatiently on his doorstep. An informer, trusted to report wildlife crimes to us, and rewarded for it. The informer had something urgent to report: he knew of a man in possession of two elephant tusks, with plans to sell them.

The Big Life ranger immediately passed the information on to senior Big Life security personnel, who contacted the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). Their response was quick, and we coordinated a meeting between the Big Life informer and KWS. 

Based on details about when, where and in what vehicle the suspect would be travelling, KWS set up an ambush and managed to catch the man red-handed with a pair of tusks. And the thing that gets us excited is that this arrest happened 200 miles from Big Life headquarters!

Our informer network is spread wide, and only with this web of community connections can you start to make poaching and trading a prohibitively risky business. When poachers act, somewhere, someone will be watching…

 RELATED LINKS:

Wildlife Protection/Anti-Poaching

The Wildlife Act is baring its teeth, as at least some magistrates use it to dramatically ramp up fines and jail time. The net result of this will be further deterrent to poachers, even if occasionally, we are still frustrated and disappointed. 

Last year Big Life’s Rombo Unit, together with Tsavo Pride rangers made what looked to be a pretty standard arrest: 2 men with the carcasses of three impala.  Everything proceeded as normal, and they were booked in Taveta and bailed out. Everyone thought this was going to result in just another slap-on-the-wrist fine and the poachers would be free to keep poaching within a few months.  Big Life didn’t even follow the normal procedure of following the case through, since it was such a clear-cut case and something that would use up resources for negligible rewards. Just by chance however, another case of ours had a hearing on the same day as the ruling on this case, so we checked in to see what the ruling would be. And what a ruling it was:  The two poachers were sentenced to a $7000 fine or ten years in prison. In the past, we have had poachers receive fines as pathetically low as $35 and community service. So this marks a dramatic turn around in this particular court, Other courts may be lagging, but some promising signs are now appearing. Craig Millar, Big Life Kenya, Head of Security and Field Coordinator.

RELATED LINKS:

Area of Operation/Long Term Solutions

Cathy, one of the rhinos in the Big-Life patrolled Chyulu Hills of Kenya, caught by one of the Big Life camera traps in October

BIG LIFE’S RHINO RANGERS’ CHRISTMAS DAY

by Samar Ntalamia, Big Life Programs Manager

The concept of Christmas is a rather new development here in Africa, and especially among the Maasai, who have resisted cultural change for a long time. To the 19th century Europeans, they were the “noblest of savages”, an elite corps of painted warriors, for whom nothing was an inducement to change. Neither peace for war, nor money for cattle, nor cities and settlement for the plains and open boundaries of their land. This isolation, their land, their traditions, codes and values have all been defended in a long and mostly passive war of resistance, carried out by a community structured as a standing army.

The present day standing army is the Big Life Foundation Rhino rangers, 95% of whom are local Maasai recruited from the local community, and famed for their intimate knowledge of the lay of the land and for bushcraft skills.  All these have come in very useful in rhino and wildlife security. 

The majority of the rhino rangers celebrate Christmas as a combination of a religious and secular festival. There is not much giving of presents - people do not have the financial resources to buy gifts for each other, and even if they did, there are not any stores that sell any Christmas gifts in the bush. 

The rangers will dress smart in their jungle fatigues and boots. Music will be quite a mix, but mostly Maasai gospel and Maasai traditional folk dance - the throaty sounds and the shaking of the neck and the legendary vertical jump. 

For rhinos, it is a difficult time, as poachers try to take advantage of the festive period to sneak into the bush and kill rhinos. Security is tightened, and there is a general state of alertness in all our ranger outposts.  

So yes, things out here in the rhino area are different at Christmas. But like anywhere else in the world, we get together as family and friends. The ways and means may differ, but the spirit is the same, as we in turn pass on what has been given to each other - love and friendship as we wish each other a merry Christmas.  And from me and the Big Life rhino rangers, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year 2014. 

 RELATED LINKS:

Wildlife Protection/Rhino Project

There is a foot path/motor bike trail linking two remote villages on Mbirikani Group Ranch in the Amboseli ecosystem. It is also shared by a host of wildlife, mainly elephant, zebra, Wildebeest and Elephant. Last week, it became the scene of a tragedy. Musa Lenkoti was returning home after visiting relatives, and when he did not arrive in the evening, his wife became worried. She alerted the Big Life Rangers that he was missing.  The rangers immediately left to look for him, and discovered a motor bike on its stand and so they began to cast around with their flashlights for tracks. This led them to a gruesome scene of a dead body which had obviously been crushed by an Elephant only 20 yards from the trail.  At first light, a combined unit of Kenya Wildlife Service and Big Life Rangers, using their tracking skills, read from the tell-tale scuffs in the dust what had taken place. Musa had come round a corner and seen an elephant. Being an inexperienced motorbike rider, he left the bike and ran into the trees nearby. Elephant, in this area are, as a rule, very tolerant of people, so we are perplexed as to why the elephant reacted as it did, by charging. Again, deciphering the tracks, what happened next is both tragic and extraordinary. As Musa ran for his life, he tore off his jacket and threw it on a bush. This tactic is well proven as a distraction when being charged by elephant, and has saved many a potential victim as the pursuing elephant often attacks the item of clothing, allowing the intended victim to get away.  Sadly, the elephant was not fooled. He pursued Musa, knocked him to the ground, repeatedly impaling him with his tusks. What happened next leaves much to superstition…… The elephant then picked up the body, walked back and deposited the body by the trail. What was this? Remorse, guilt, confusion, I don’t know. I have heard many stories over the years of this sort of behavior. One was told to me by George Adamson. When he was game warden in North Kenya, he was called in to shoot an elephant that had supposedly killed a woman while she was carrying water back to her village. George arrived on the scene and soon figured out that in fact the woman had collapsed and died of heart attack. He could then see from the tracks of the elephant that had supposedly killed her, that in fact it had walked down the path later and come across the body, whereupon it collected branches from nearby trees and covered her. The story gets worse. Musa had two other brothers. In 1992, a call came in that a young herder had gone missing. The sheep that he had been herding had returned to the village in the evening without him. The next morning, we started a search operation, in the air and on the ground, but after a week, it was called off, and what happened to this young herder still remains a mystery. But the general consensus is that he was probably killed by a lion. Musa's other brother died just two months ago. He had been knocked down and injured by an elephant last year and never fully recovered. I am not sure of the circumstances around the incident, as it happened in another area, but we are now left with a situation where three brothers have died through conflict with wildlife. Traditionally in the Maasai culture, when a head of any household dies, dependents are absorbed by the husband's family. However in this case there is no close relative to take them on and assume the basic needs of house and shelter - let alone education for his six children.  Big Life has already contributed by giving food and clothing, but I feel we must take this a step further and see that the family do not become destitute and his children have an opportunity to be educated. Big Life’s mandate has always been to try to provide and generate benefits from wildlife, hence our wildlife scholarship program, compensating for livestock killed by predators, supporting schools, healthcare etc.  So with this in mind, I have told Musa's wife and children that we would like to set up a fund to help support their family’s welfare and education. The cost to educate a child for a year is $700 which will be administered through the Big Life Wildlife Scholarship Program. Sponsors that would like to help this fund, can, should they wish, be in contact with the child, so they can monitor progress. We ask that you help make some good out of this tragedy. At the same time this fund will create goodwill for elephant in the future.  Please go to:
www.biglife.org/donations Thank You Richard Bonham.

Big Life’s Tanzanian-based tracker dogs, Rocky and Jerry, go from strength to strength on Big Life’s anti-poaching operations in Tanzania.  The unit has become so popular that Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA), the Wildlife Division, the Police, and even the military have requested the assistance of Rocky and Jerry. For example, in October 2013, the unit came to the aid of a successful crackdown on illegal logging in Arusha National Park. Earlier this year, they tracked down a poacher from Manyara Ranch to a bus in Arusha. “I love working with Rocky and Jerry. They are my friends,” said Lembris Kephas, Big Life's anti-poaching sergeant and head of the tracker dog unit. “They also make our jobs much easier.” While focused on tracking poachers in Big Life's project areas in Tanzania, Rocky and Jerry have so far also supported operations in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Mount Kilimanjaro National Park, Tarangire National Park, Manyara National Park, and Arusha National Park.  For Big Life, this has led to stronger teamwork and information-sharing among anti-poaching forces and conservation groups throughout northern Tanzania.

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Wildlife Protection/Dogs Save Elephants

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by Nick Sharp

by Richard Bonham 

All too often we post stories of catching poachers AFTER they have killed.

But yesterday, the Big Life rangers from our mobile unit, acting on a tip-off that some poachers were preparing to go on a hunt, raided a house at night and arrested three notorious poachers with poisoned arrows, 2 bows, and three razor sharp slashers which are used to the hamstrings of anything from a gazelle to a giraffe.

This trio of poachers have been operating in the eastern Chyulu area for years. But as it’s an area where we don¹t have a Ranger base camp, so we have always been one step behind them.

While that was going on, another team of Big Life rangers
arrested two other poachers, who had already killed 2 Dik Dik and a reedbuck.

Both groups are sharing a cell awaiting trial.

The last month has been hectic, with so much going on there has been little time to post what what the Big Life rangers have been doing. As an indicator this is what happened yesterday.

Early morning call up, two rifle shots heard at Elerai - that’s just outside Amboseli National Park on the shoulders of Kilimanjaro. A joint team of Kenya Wildlife Service and Big Life rangers are rushed to the scene to support the Satao Elerai rangers whilst the Big Life team from across the border come in to make a cut off. Later,they call in to say they are on the tracks of 4 people, a little later they have found 2 spent heavy rifle cartridges and the tracks of an elephant running. The team splits, one following the wounded elephant and another following the poacher's tracks. By nightfall the Elephant is still not found but the poacher's tracks have led the rangers to a village close to the Tanzanian border. They wait for darkness and close in, as they do so the village dogs bark and come rushing out attacking the rangers and in the pandemonium the poachers flee into the darkness and across the border into Tanzania. Not a good outcome, but we have names.

Whilst all this is going on some good news - one of the camera traps set in the Rhino area have caught pictures of 3 different Rhino. That’s a record, 3 individuals in one night!!

The next action is that informers have information that a known poacher on eastern Chyulu has been seen cleaning a rifle at his homestead. Again a joint KWS and Big life team rush there. They raid the homestead but no sign of a rifle, the suspect is currently being interrogated.

Not far away the Chyulu unit are in ambush for a group of wood carvers who had gone into the park to cut wood, They arrest them as they come out of the park, in addition to the hardwoods they are carrying they have snares which they use to catch antelope while they are collecting wood.

As if this is not enough for one day, Rombo outpost calls in to say that they have caught a poacher who had just killed an Impala.

by Nick Sharp
August 19 2012

A fit, healthy, young adult sitting bone idle can last anywhere from 5 to 7 days without water – one's prospects go south from there pretty quickly when conditions get any trickier. The scorched plains of Mbirikani Group Ranch between two rainy seasons offer something near the ultimate test, so how long do you think a blind man in his '60s walking 15km a day without water or food would survive? This week we got terrifyingly close to finding out.

On Saturday morning, the Big Life radio frequency was full of talk about a blind man called Jaluo Orputuai who had gone missing. He had left a party in Mbirikani about 60 hours earlier and was last seen heading south towards home. In the absence of the high tech emergency services of the 1st world it was up to teams from the local community helped by Big Life Rangers, vehicles and communication equipment to go out and find Jaluo. His tracks had him heading south, deeper and deeper into the ranch and away from his home, it was immediately clear that he had become very lost and disoriented.

Once the ground team were on his tracks and had established the area he was heading in, it was decided that 5Y-BGJ would put her anti-poaching duties aside and join the search and rescue mission.

We got airborne with 4 sets of eyes in the plane and canvassed the search area. The hope was that even if we couldn’t spot the man from the air, he would hear us and try to signal us. 90 disheartening minutes later and with the fuel gauge needle flirting with the red zone, it was time to refuel and reassess the search area.

At this point John Stevens (a very experience Zimbabwean bushmen and tracker who was staying with Richard) and I decided our services would be better used on the ground, we could get water and equipment to the search party and coordinate Richards flying efforts from there. By now it was mid-day and with the sun at its highest point in the sky, things weren’t looking good.

On the ground, tracking was being led by Maasai Morans who were now following Jaluo's tracks through the black cotton soil heading north. Disoriented, exhausted, thirsty, hungry and blind, he had remarkably started heading back home towards Mbirikani. 5 hours later and with the sun slipping closer to the horizon there were plans being made to continue the search into the night, our tracker dog Jazz was being harnessed (he works much better when it’s not so hot) and the vision gear was ready to go.

Suddenly out of nowhere, a dot appeared on the horizon frantically waving at us. It was like a starting piston had been fired and the entire search party screamed across the plains towards it. The blob become bigger and bigger and then it become two blobs - one of them taking up the shape of a motorbike. This was not our guy. Disheartened, the sprint become an amble, a flat tire no doubt the cause of this false alarm. As we got closer the man’s frantic waving oddly became even more frantic. He was urging us away from him and towards Mbirikani. A quick scan of the horizon in that direction and another blob was spotted. This had to be our guy!

Collapsed in a heap of dirty clothing was Jalou's fragile frame. His body was close to giving up, and his muscle had become spastic, an indication of 10% + fluid loss - 15% is fatal. Really it was remarkable that he was still going. After over three days in the scorching sun without water, his ordeal was nearly over.

After removing his hot sweatshirt and boots and carefully cleaning his mouth and face, he was given a wet cloth to suck on (drinking water in such a dehydrated state is often fatal). We then rushed him to the clinic where the staff did a fantastic job of stabilizing his condition and beginning the procedure of rehydrating him.

Big Life’s operations are rarely confined to our programmes, and in the absence of viable alternatives, there are a million different roles that our rangers and staff take to help the local community.

by Richard Bonham
March 7 2012

The Big Life Game Rangers have a tough job, routine day patrols, night patrols, spending night after night in ambushes which more often than not don't come to anything, taking on armed and dangerous poachers and so on. I try and praise them where I can to keep morale up, but often feel they don't get the recognition they deserve.

But last week they received the best recognition possible, which also made me proud. The Kenya Wildlife Service director, Dr. Julius Kipn'getich, visited Amboseli to meet all the stakeholders in the ecosystem. In his speech he congratulated the rangers, saying that without doubt, they were the best community rangers in Kenya. He said that the results of their work spoke for themselves, as there were no other areas in Kenya, policed by community rangers, that had so few incidents of bush meat and elephant poaching.

Admittedly, our rangers are better equipped than most, and receive the support required to make the job easier, but still, this accolade makes us all proud.

by Richard Bonham
February 24 2012

We release stories of Big Life activities, but on a daily basis so much is going on that you never hear about. Here are just a few things that have happened yesterday.

1) Radio call from Rombo, the current hotspot for much of the poaching, bordering as it does the giant area that is Tsavo National Park:
Following a tip-off, the team set up an ambush on a track used by bush meat traders.
At midnight, a motor bike appeared and was stopped. It was carrying the butchered remains of a Dik Dik and Grants gazelle. The owner of the motor bike had been called in by poachers who had killed the two animals by using a spotlight to dazzle them, freezing them on the spot, so they could walk tight up to them, and then breaking their backs with machetes.
The poachers got away but it is undoubtedly as good to catch the middle man, as when he gets to court, he will be forced to forfeit his motorbike to the court, and hopefully receive a sentence for being in possession of game meat.

2) I received the following text message from Wilson Mancha, the commanding officer of Kimana area. ''Hi Sir, lion caused problems on OGR last night by jumping on roof of hut where young goats were being held with family sleeping. Lion scared away but killed cow in next boma''. Fortunately the livestock owners did not take any action, as they will receive payment for the cow that was killed by the lion.

3) Report from Osiwan outpost: The 200 liters of diesel fuel that Big Life has donated to the community had arrived. This enables the community to pump water away from the community water point. This was necessary because in the last dry season, elephants had destroyed some pipes to the cattle trough to get to the water, so now hopefully, the elephants should stay away. This kind of support and understanding in helping the local communities is what helps make them so supportive of Big Life's activities in return. We can only achieve the successes we do with their support.

4) A report came in from Saliata - an area is about 60 miles away from our nearest area of operations - to say that an elephant had been shot, and its tusks hacked out. The poachers had crossed the border into Tanzania. Another depressing reminder that we have to be constantly alert.

5) The Elmarba vehicle called in to say that he had been charged by a female elephant while trying to chase them out of crops and his only escape was to plough through a thorny bushes, which shredded the canvas that covers the back of his Land Cruiser. Damn, that's $500 of unbudgeted expenses we will have to find.

And so it goes...just another day here on the Kenyan side....

by Richard Bonham
February 14 2012

The Big Life team from Osiwan outpost saved a pride of lions from poisoning yesterday. Four months ago, the team were not able to save two lions that were horribly poisoned in the same way (see attached photos).

But this time, an informer bought in information that that a cow had been killed by lions after it had been lost by its herder while grazing, and that the owner of the cow, enraged by the loss, laced the carcass with Furudan poison.

It is essential that informers' identities are not compromised, so he gave the team directions to the location of the carcass. The team were there within an hour, just in time as vultures had already found the carcass and were about to move in to start feeding. The birds would have been the first casualties of this indiscriminate and cruel method of killing, followed by hyena and most likely the lions, who usually return to feed on their kills.

Furadan is used as a pesticide in the farming industry, and made by FMC in the USA where it is banned. FMC however has been exporting it for years into the third world in huge quantities. After years of campaigning against its use in East Africa, FMC begrudgingly withdrew the product for sale in East Africa but there are still large amounts of this poison available on the black market. In this case, it's very easy to identify the poison used as it's bright blue.

Poisoning is becoming a favourite method of killing wildlife by poachers, We have had attempts to kill rhino and elephant in our area where the poachers either lace water points, or put down poisoned cabbages and melons.....Just one teaspoon will kill an elephant.

So thank you to the informer (who will be handsomely rewarded), and well done to the Osiwan Big Life rangers.

December 10 2011

Big Life Foundation just hit the One Year mark since we were up and running in the field. This is what happens to a decal on the side of one of the Big Life anti-poaching patrol vehicles in that time.

Click here to view the Safaritalk's interview with Nick Brandt June 12 2011.

Elephant Drinking (Igor), Amboseli, 2007. Killed by Poachers, 2009. © Nick Brandt 2011

What are you doing that is different from the plethora of wildlife NGOs already operating in the field? Before Big Life, there were basically no wildlife NGO's concentrating on full-scale anti-poaching programs within the Amboseli ecosystem on either side of the border. Kenya Wildlife Service tried their best, but were completely underfunded, and Richard Bonham, who is now Director of Operations for Big Life, was severely underfunded in what he could achieve with the Amboseli Tsavo Game Scouts Association. So what we are doing - a well-funded comprehensive anti-poaching operation on both sides of the border within the ecosystem - is effectively a first. Considering the critical importance of the Amboseli ecosystem within the context of the wildlife of East Africa, I think what we are doing is critical.  My belief is that to be truly effective, you need someone in charge right there on the ground, with the ability to direct and co-ordinate operations first hand, to work in close partnership with the Parks, the local communities, and with the other NGO’s, to marshal everyone’s resources for maximum efficiency for everyones’ benefit. With Richard Bonham as Big Life’s full-time Director of Operations in Africa, we have this. Richard has lived in the Amboseli area for decades, knows all of the key players there, and has a better understanding than anyone of how to address the multiple problems.    Meanwhile, on the Tanzanian side, Damian Bell is Big Life’s Operations Manager in Tanzania. As founder of Honeyguide Foundation, he has an outstanding relationship with the local communities and wildlife departments, perhaps more so than anyone else in Northern Tanzania. On the Tanzanian side, there has been almost no-one to stop the poachers having free rein. And when poachers have come into Kenya from Tanzania to kill elephants before escaping back over the border, they have simply gotten away, because there was no cross-border anti-poaching team with which to communicate or co-ordinate.  Now, two of our most significant arrests of poachers have been ones who escaped from Kenya into Tanzania and, through coordination of our Big Life teams in both countries, were able to arrest those poachers, poachers whom for as long as two decades had been systematically poaching Amboseli's wildlife whilst evading the authorities. 

What is your answer to the following: Is all the money which is being donated to the various and numerous NGOs really making a difference, or would it be better spent funding a militarised force to provide 24/7 protection for wildlife in Africa?  No, militarised personnel can only ever be one part of the solution.If you went solely that way, you'd never win. First and foremost, you have to have the support of the local communities. For example, realistically, even with patrol vehicles, our 100+ rangers so far cannot possibly begin to cover 2 million acres on their own. The way they are truly able to be effective is to rely on informers' information - most of the arrests of poachers come from information supplied by informers. 

What assistance is the Kenyan and Tanzanian Governments and wildlife authorities offering to your initiative? So far, we have great support for our initiatives. Kenya Wildlife Service and Big Life are working closely together to great effect. KWS are going to be providing training for our rangers, supplying us with two armed rangers for each of our outposts, later in the year, and they have also promised to give some of our rangers Kenyan Police Reserve status, so that they can be armed. KWS completely appreciate our help in protecting the huge buffer zone areas around Amboseli. Further evidence of KWS's support is that when we had our official launch of one of the outposts, the Director of KWS and the Chairman of the Board both came for the opening. In Tanzania, our Operations Manager, Damian Bell, of our partners Honeyguide Foundation, is working closely and effectively with the Wildlife Division and the all-important village councils. At the Tanzanian launch, all three of the administrative regions in which we're working sent their most senior government people to pledge their support.

Problem animals and human vs. wildlife conflict. How will those you work with counter such problems, if such instances occur within your areas of operation? Human/wildlife conflict occurs constantly in our area due to the large amount of farmland in the Kilmanjaro foothills and on down from there. We devote a significant amount of ranger patrol time to these areas, where elephants raid the crops, etc. Thunder Flashes - a harmless noisy pyrotechnic - are used by our teams to scare off the elephants. These only work so much before the elephants come back, so constant vigilance is required. But since we put our rangers in patrolling, the number of elephants being speared and poisoned by farmers has dropped massively, which is very encouraging.

Subsistence poaching versus professional poaching syndicates. How do you deal with the two facets of poaching: and, what kind of poaching are you tackling? Solely ivory poaching, or the illegal bush meat trade as well? Do you, for instance, have a reward payment scheme that has been initiated for communities which don’t poison lions, or which go out and assist in snare removal for example? In my opinion, the single best use of donor money for wildlife protection, is money for a network of informers. We have vastly expanded the pre-existing network of informers, and greatly increased the rewards - up to $1500 for information leading to the arrest of someone caught with ivory. It was information from our informers that led to Big Life teams arresting of two of the worst, most prolific major poachers and their gangs in the Amboseli region, poachers who had been systematically poaching for the last two decades, and whom up until that point, the authorities had been unable to pin anything on. We are focused on ivory and illegal bush meat poaching. This isn't just limited to catching the poachers, but also catching the traders, and trying to follow through as much as we can on all prosecutions.

Where do you see the greatest threat to wildlife coming from in the Amboseli ecosystem, and what methods are you employing in order to combat it? Two, really : Obviously, the recent massive escalation in poaching for both commercial and bush meat; and the ongoing population pressure and loss of habitat, which obviously leads to human/wildlife conflict, in the form of spearing and poisoning, from elephants to lions, hyena and cheetah on down.

Big Life Rangers in Kenya, Jan 2011.

Other than the usual educational programmes, how do you integrate local communities into your efforts? Do you employ local people in positions of authority? 99% of our employees are local. The only non-locals are Richard and our Field Co-ordinator, Llewellyn DYER. We feel that it is essential to employ the local community - to engage them emotionally and economically in preserving the wildlife so they can se how they benefit. As an example, a month or so ago, a lion killed a cow of a village elder. The Masai warriors went on the hunt to kill it, but the village elder told them not to, as his son now worked as a Big Life ranger.

Fighting fire with fire. Following on from the recent report in www.theeastafrican.co.ke entitled “Militant groups fuel poaching in East Africa” are you prepared to place your scouts and wardens in mortal danger, and what will be their rules of engagement? What equipment, arms will they be supplied with in order to counter the well armed and trained criminal poaching syndicates? The rangers are aware of the risks of their job. Part of our responsibility is to train them for dangerous situations without putting themselves at undue risk. In fact, the Tananzian rangers wrote a song which they sang to us just this week, part of the lyric of which go something like this: "mother, I have a job as a ranger. If I die, don't cry for me, because I am doing it for conservation..."  In terms of weapons, the Tanzanian rangers are getting their weapons in the next month, and in Kenya, the Director of Kenya Wildlife Service has promised us that our rangers will receive Kenya Police Reserve status by the end of the year. In the meantime, they work closely and effectively with Amboseli's KWS teams. They seem to appreciate the support we can give by protecting wildlife in the huge buffer zones around the park and are planning to put two armed rangers into each of our camps in a few months. And to help them, we have donated a new Landcruiser to their single armed Wildlife Protection Unit to help them implement their mission.

Big Life Rangers in Tanzania, April 2011.

At the recent International Conference on Biodiveristy, Land Use and Climate Change in Nairobi it was suggested that many of the problems with the future viability of the natural resources of Kenya (for instance) revolves around the lack of a cohesive central organisation to co-ordinate the many public - private partnerships in conservation, landowners, businesses etc. Noting your comment on your website “With particular emphasis on countering the recent alarming escalation of poaching of African wildlife, Big Life seeks to work together with other NGO's in the areas to consolidate, coordinate and collaborate on all information and resources, so that as a team, maximum efficiency and effectiveness for protection of the ecosystems can be realized.” Do you see the future of Big Life Foundation taking a proactive role in this wider area or are you satisfied if you can work in the Amboseli ecosystem and make change in that important area? In Amboseli, we are urgently acting to stabilise the situation. On the one hand, it grieves me that we are not addressing more than this one admittedly huge and critically important area, but I also know we should not move on to other areas in desperate need of help until the situation is stablised in Amboseli with an ongoing stable funding base. As and when we achieve that, I would want to direct funds elsewhere, but only using the same template that is working in Amboseli - with someone with intimate knowledge of the place and the people who lives there, running the project on the ground. 

Also coming out of this conference were concerns regarding the new Kenyan Constitution and the effect that the two tier government will have on the abuse of natural resources. For instance, funding to county councils being reduced to such low levels that to survive they may have to exploit natural resources in their area to such an extent that survival of the wildlife is threatened even more. Now that you have a Foundation with the goal to ”help slow down and ultimately halt the further destruction of the natural world” do you see yourself becoming more political in the future? You pretty much have to get political. Not just locally, but also nationally and internationally.  Locally, county councils are beginning to understand the economic benefit of wildlife and good environmental stewardship to their natural areas.  Nationally, we need to do everything we can to persuade the government of the same - something that seems to be a problem with just abut every government on the planet with the exception of a few like Costa Rica.   And internationally, we have to exert urgent pressure on the governments of the Far East to make far more efforts to enforce the illegal trade in animal parts. I wish I had more time to engage in the international aspect, to target the problem at its source, but there are only so many hours in the day. So in the meantime, I hope groups like Wild Aid continue their incredibly hard but important initiatives in China and the rest of the Far East, to educate the people there as to the terrible destruction being wrought in Africa as a result of their desires.

Elephant with Half-Ear (Winston), Amboseli, July 2010. Killed by Poachers August 2010. © Nick Brandt 2011

What responsibility do you feel that frequent travellers to wildlife in Africa have to maintain the ecological future of the wilderness they love to visit? For instance, it has been suggested that tourists put more pressure on their guides to behave ethically; that they become better informed about the environmental credentials of the camps and operators they use; that they should be more responsible with how and where they spend their money and that they would be better served by donating more of their safari dollars to conservation and give up some of their visits. I absolutely wish that visitors on safaris would research the lodges and tour operators with environmental responsibility and make the effort to only go with these. There are some great, environmentally responsible lodges and operators out there, but there are also thousands who are anything but. If you go with the right operators, you know that some of that money going back into the local community and helping, directly or indirectly helping the local wildlife. You won't get that with the likes of a Somak who don't give a damn about anything other than a quick profit. For them it's just bums in beds, quantity rather than quality, at the expense of the environment, the animals, and of the local communities. For those operators and lodges that don't give a damn, they are being short-sighted not putting anything back - no-one will come if there are no animals left.

There is a lot of discussion on many forums regarding your methods of photography and post production. Do you feel that the added mystery provided by fellow photographers not being sure how you achieved your end result enhance the desirability of your images? I do get irritated at some peoples' certitude that some of my images could only have been engineered in Photoshop, when in actuality, they were the result of frigging weeks and weeks of endless waiting for all the right elements of animals, location and light to align. I almost feel like I have to release the more inferior, flawed frame just so it doesn't look so perfectly arranged, while that 'perfect' frame took me forever to get. There's also one effect I used to do that people are convinced is created in Photoshop, which is actually a physical impossibility, and is achieved all in camera in a very crude, simple way.  I don't feel that the added mystery enhances the desirability of the images. I just don't see why everyone these days needs to know everything about how every technique is achieved by every photographer/filmmaker/musician/painter etc. Coca-Cola keeps its recipe secret. I keep some of mine, as I would expect many other artists to do. All you need to know about my photos is that what is in the final print maintains the integrity of what was actually there at that moment in time - those animals, in that place, under that sky.

What do you say, if anything, to the professional wildlife photographers who turn up their noses at any photography of wildlife that isn’t a totally realistic depiction of the scene in front of them? Not comparing myself, but just as an analogy, it's equivalent to a landscape photographer turning up their noses at Ansel Adams or Edward Weston. For them, the negative was just the first step towards the final image. I am not personally interested in taking purely documentative photography. I want it to be interpretative, subjective, personal. My final prints do maintain the integrity of what was there in front of me at the time - those animals in that landscape under that sky were all there. But the grading of the image, the burning and dodging of the image is often very detailed. I do however think that I over-worked my photos in the early years - in a way that embarrasses me now, and ironically, it's the most crude, worst aspects of that early work that I see most copied. The grading is much more subtle now.

Given this resistance to a more artistic approach to showing wildlife, what advice would you give to a new photographer who wants to pursue a career as a wildlife photographer but not in a traditional manner? I do not in any way consider myself a wildlife photographer. A wildlife photographer photographs a more documentative view of the world, usually attempting to shoot animals in moments of high action. I am much more interested in capturing animals simply in the state of Being, as sentient beings not so different from us, living within an astonishing natural world that is disappearing fast. And as will eventually be more clearly revealed in the third part of the trilogy of books, showing the way they and the natural world they inhabit are being destroyed. But I really have no particular advice to any photographer, other than always photograph for yourself, never for others.  But that applies to any artist in any art form.

It seems to be a great and logical fit that a photographer who is able to show a more sympathetic, aesthetic and soulful view of wildlife would, as a consequence, want to preserve that wildlife. Is this in part, why you formed Big Life Foundation? Initially, when it was first suggested by a few people that I start my own Foundation, it seemed to me like a very self-aggrandizing and self-important concept, which made me extremely resistant to the notion. But I began to realise a few things : when it came to Amboseli, money for wildlife protection was in dangerously short supply, and that, through virtue of the audience for my work, and some wealthy collectors of the prints, I had access to potential major donors in a significant way. Of course, that means nothing if you can't back it up with serious ideas and intent. And so far, that has proven to be the case.

Are you planning to inject personal funds into Big Life Foundation, or are you using your profile to encourage others to provide the funding required?  This leads into the question - why should we donate and support your foundation over others? I've injected a lot of personal funds to help get the ball rolling, about 10% of our raised funds. I was fortunate enough to have two of the best collectors of my work, Fiona Druckenmiller and Stan & Kristine Baty, inject a combined $700,000 so far into Big Life. We really owe Big Life's existence to Fiona's fantastic initial generosity, and faith in my intentions before anything had been proven. Why should people donate to Big Life over others? With no internal bureaucracy, with Big Life's Director of Operations, Richard Bonham, being right there on the ground, donor money goes where it needs to go, and it goes there fast, efficiently and effectively. We don't hang around. We can't afford to. That's why within just a few months, the poaching in Amboseli has been significantly reduced, and some major, prolific long-term poachers finally arrested. We are also working in a unique area where there was next to no protection, which was crazy considering Amboseli has, in my opinion, the finest elephant population in East Africa. The template, the methodology we are applying is working very well, and if we receive enough money to the point where our operations are sustainable and stable in the Amboseli ecosystem, we can then apply that to other areas in East Africa in critical need of help. 

Elephants Walking Through Grass, Amboseli 2008. Leading Matriarch (Marianna). Killed By Poachers, 2009. © Nick Brandt 2011

In fifty years time, how did you see the state of African wildlife? Well, in the space of far fewer years than that, at the current rate of destruction, there will be no animal populations of any consequence left outside unprotected areas. It's already happening at shocking speed.  Where there are animals, those areas will have to be protected, not just under the guise of official Parks and Reserves, but also through concession areas, and large buffer zones to Parks like we are protecting in the Amboseli ecosystem. I also think there will be more fenced-in glorified giant zoological parks like Lake Nakuru in Kenya. Of course these cannot accommodate migratory animals, or sustain a species like elephants who plough through an enormous amount of vegetation daily.

However, constant vigilance will have to be maintained. Local communities will hopefully see more and more the value of preserving the wildlife for their local economy, but it always only needs a few bad seeds, be it corrupt government or external militia looking to make a fast profit, to destroy those precious remaining areas in a nano-second. Add into the mix both climate change from a combination of deforestation and global warming, and the ongoing pressure from a fast-growing population, and the resultant pressure on diminishing natural resources, will make it even harder to maintain even those protected areas.

However, I would not be devoting the enormous amount of time and energy to preserving this stunning world if I did not think that we stood a chance of preserving certain critical areas like the Amboseli ecosystem (but then I think every natural area is critical, and I just wish that we had enough money to protect all of them starting NOW).

The first anti-poaching camp was inaugurated on Oct. 17 at Kimana, very near to the Tanzania border. This has been one of the places that has seen the worst poaching in Amboseli, as it is so near the border. It's where Igor, the 45 year old bull elephant in the Elephant Drinking photo was killed in 2009. We'll have the second camp up and running in Kitirua, another hotspot down at the other end of Amboseli, but also on the Tanzanian border, very soon.

Today, Christmas Day, while much of the world is on holiday, the Big Life team and KWS arrested another two ivory dealers.  In addition, there are over 200+ Big Life rangers out there on high alert, as poachers always recognise that Christmas is a time to cash in, while in theory, our guard is down.  So on this day, let us think of all those dedicated men out there on the sharp end, and wish them luck going forward into the new year.