Big Life Foundation

Description

Big Life Foundation is a non-profit conservation organization working to protect the wildlife and habitats of the Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem in East Africa. It was co-founded in September 2010 by photographer Nick Brandt, conservationist Richard Bonham and entrepreneur Tom Hill, growing out of earlier conservation work in the region. It uses community-based and collaborative strategies rather than acting alone.

Its operations on the ground in Kenya are managed by Big Life Kenya, covering 1.6 million acres of wilderness, while partners at the Honeyguide Foundation manage its work in Tanzania. Local Maasai rangers patrol using outposts, tent-based field units, vehicles, tracker dogs and aerial surveillance to prevent poaching of elephants, rhinos and other wildlife. It works with the Kenya Wildlife Service to protect the Eastern black rhino, and it runs a Predator Compensation Fund that pays local Maasai for livestock losses to discourage retaliation against lions and other carnivores.

The organization also works to reduce conflict between people and wildlife, such as crop-raiding by elephants, and it supports local communities through teachers’ salaries, scholarships and conservation workshops. It helped create the Maasai Olympics, a sporting event that channels traditional warrior skills away from lion hunting toward wildlife conservation. It has registered charities in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, alongside supporters worldwide.