Big Life Foundation
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WILDLIFE PROTECTION
Big Life strives to prevent the poaching of elephants and all wildlife within our area of operation, which consists of more than 40 permanent outposts and tent-based field units, tracker dogs, and aerial surveillance. In addition to preventing poaching before it happens, we track and apprehend wildlife criminals and collaborate with local prosecutors to ensure that they are punished to the fullest extent of the law. One of the largest employers of local Maasai in the Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem, our rangers are expertly trained and well-equipped to tackle a variety of wildlife crimes. As a result, poaching activity in our area of operation, whether for trafficking or bush meat, has dropped significantly since our inception in 2010. RHINO PROTECTION
Big Life works in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service to protect the endangered Eastern black rhino population in the Chyulu Hills area. Together, we conduct extensive foot patrols, aerial surveillance, and monitoring via camera traps. We also provide reliable, year-round access to protected watering points in this remote wilderness area to discourage rhinos from wandering beyond our area of operation in search of water during the dry seasons. PREDATOR PROTECTION
For Maasai herders, their cattle are their livelihood. When livestock falls prey to local predators, like lions or hyenas, the herders are financially disadvantaged and justifiably frustrated. To prevent herders from retaliating with spears or poisoned carcasses, Big Life incentivizes members of our partner communities to protect their livestock through improved fencing and husbandry practices. In the event that an animal is lost to a predator through no fault of the herder, Big Life will compensate the herder for a percentage of the market value of the animal. This small consolation is significant to the Maasai, and as a result, retaliatory killings have been dramatically reduced in the area, with lion and other predator populations now on the rise. HUMAN-WILDLIFE CONFLICT
As the human population increases, so do competing land-uses, such as farming and cattle grazing. Fighting for desperately limited resources like water and grass, humans encroach further and further onto what once were wild lands. With less space to share, people and animals now come into contact at an alarming rate, often with catastrophic and deadly results. Big Life works in partnership with the local Maasai to mitigate the impact of wildlife interactions, such as crop-raiding by hungry elephants, both for the people and the animals. EDUCATION
Fighting wildlife crimes helps the ecosystem today, but winning the hearts and minds of the community and providing a mutual benefit through conservation is the only way to protect wildlife and wild lands far into the future. Big Life invests in the future of participating communities by funding teachers’ salaries, providing scholarship funds for local students, and conducting conservation workshops. When the entire community benefits from conservation efforts and recognizes the value of protecting the ecosystem, enforcement becomes self-policing. MAASAI OLYMPICS
In 2008, the cultural fathers of the new warrior generation asked Maasailand Preservation Trust—now Big Life Foundation—to help them eliminate lion hunting from the Maasai culture. In response, we partnered with the local Maasai to create the first-ever Maasai Olympics: the hunt for medals, not lions. This biennial event is a critically important—and effective—part of the initiative to create a cultural shift in attitudes of the Maasai toward a broader commitment to wildlife and habitat conservation.
BUILDING A BETTER BASE
Protecting wildlife starts with taking care of the people who protect it.
Across the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem, Big Life’s rangers work from 33 strategically positioned outposts. These bases allow teams to patrol remote areas, respond to human-wildlife conflict, protect habitat, and be where they are needed when an emergency happens.
But when you’ve been going for more than 30 years as we have, many of our outposts are aging and some are no longer fit for the purpose they now serve. At Hippo Outpost in Kimana Sanctuary, increasingly severe flooding was sending water and mud through ranger sleeping quarters. At Ilng’osuani on Eselengei, 19 rangers shared facilities that were not built for a team of that size, with unreliable power creating additional challenges.
We’re changing that.
We are building more comfortable sleeping quarters, adequate sanitation, reliable power, better operational spaces, and creating homes that rangers are happy to return to after long days and nights in the field.
As Daniel Popote, Operation Commander at Kimana Sanctuary, put it: “Now we will be safe and comfortable in the new location and can concentrate on protecting wildlife and mitigating conflict between communities and wildlife.”
It’s not the most visible part of conservation. But it’s essential infrastructure for the people doing this work every day.
We’re incredibly grateful to Max Sadron and his friends and family, as well as The Thin Green Line Foundation, whose generosity is making it possible to fully upgrade Hippo and Ilng’osuani Outposts.
There is still much work to do on other outposts across our operating area. Strong ranger teams need strong foundations. Thank you for your support making it possible.
📸: Joshua Clay
01/10/2026
SEVEN COLLARED ELEPHANTS AND ONE SORE BUM
Flying a Super Cub aircraft might be the most fun anyone can have off the ground, but 10 hours and 700 miles in a small cockpit can take the shine off of it a little. Ask Craig Millar, Big Life’s Chief Operations Officer, who just joined an elephant conservation super-team on a big mission.
Planned and led by our partners at the Amboseli Trust for Elephants (ATE), the objective was to put satellite tracking collars on seven female elephants. With over 50 years of elephant monitoring in Amboseli, ATE has the most extraordinary understanding of this incredible elephant population, but advancing technology continues to open new ways of learning.
The elephants were chosen from specific family groups, based on interest in their movements on community-owned land outside of Amboseli National Park. This data provides a detailed understanding elephant family ranging behavior, critical for identifying and motivating for the creation of community-protected areas.
Big Life was very happy to provide aerial support during the 3-day operation - finding the right family groups and guiding ground teams to them - working with teams from ATE, Kenya Wildlife Service, Kenya Wildlife Service Training Institute, Save the Elephants, and Tsavo Trust.
This is the power of working together, and there is nothing we enjoy more.
📸: Ranger Daniel Kutata
EXPANDING OUR HEALTHCARE HORIZONS
When people can’t get to the hospital, you bring the hospital to them.
Across Big Life’s area of operation, many remote Maasai communities lack access to basic healthcare services. Expecting people to care about wildlife conservation isn’t realistic if we don’t care about them in return.
We launched our Backpack Nurse Program in 2022 together with our longstanding partners at CHASE Africa. It started with a small group of tenacious nurses loaded with backpacks full of basic medicines, riding motorbikes to the most remote corners of the ecosystem. Today, that number has grown to 42. In just a few years, these nurses have provided essential healthcare services to thousands of people.
Now, thanks to renewed funding from CHASE Africa, we are able to dramatically amplify this impact in the form of integrated outreach clinics.
The first just took place in Njukuni, a remote village in Rombo. Big Life provided the transportation, managed the logistics, and coordinated 12 medical professionals from the Kajiado County Ministry of Health.
In a single visit, more than 350 community members were able to access a range of services, including: family planning, antenatal care, ultrasound, malaria treatment, cancer and HIV screenings, eye exams, and comprehensive curative care and follow ups.
This is just the beginning. We will be hosting at least one integrated outreach clinic every month until the end of 2028, reaching villages identified by Ministry of Health as having the greatest obstacles to healthcare.
It’s an initiative that will save and improve the lives of thousands of people.
We are grateful to our supporters the world over, and our partners at CHASE Africa and the Ministry of Health for making a difference in the lives of so many. Because conservation only succeeds when communities lead.
📽️: Joshua Clay
This is what decades of community-led conservation can make possible.
Less poaching. Less human-wildlife conflict. Greater access to healthcare and education. And a powerful local network protecting nature across the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem.
But protecting what has been achieved also means protecting the place that makes it all possible.
Our new five-minute film, Amboseli Forever, celebrates how far we’ve come—and looks ahead to one of the greatest challenges facing this extraordinary ecosystem: ensuring wildlife has the habitat it needs for generations to come.
Created with Emmy-winning cinematographer Toby Strong, the full film is now available for everyone to watch.
Watch Amboseli Forever —and share it with someone who should see this place for themselves.
🔗: https://biglife.org/amboseliforever
📽️: Toby Strong
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