Ami Vitale: recommendation

Transcript context

…Well, I keep learning, but they teach me so much. It’s really important to remember the communities living with the wildlife are their greatest protectors. That is the case with the Samburu, certainly. I met them, gosh, now it’s 13, 14 years ago, and they had a dream back then to protect the wildlife. That community also suffered gangs of poachers coming in and poaching the wildlife. This was a community pushing back and saying, “We need to protect the wildlife because we need them for our own survival, too.” Against all odds, they created the first indigenous-owned elephant sanctuary in all of Africa. Back when I first met them, it was just a dream, and many people laughed at them and thought, “There’s no way you’re going to be able to make an elephant sanctuary because they’re expensive and you don’t have the political power. You don’t have the funding.” But they did it. I’ve been following along on their journey, and it’s really extraordinary. It’s called Reteti Elephant Sanctuary. I hope anybody interested who has the means can go and visit this place because what they’re doing is changing, not just how people there relate to wild animals, but how they relate to each other. It’s also the first elephant sanctuary that hires indigenous women to be elephant keepers in a very patriarchal society, and it’s transforming a lot. They’re doing things differently there. It’s so interesting. Another story — they’ve made huge impacts in our understanding of elephant behavior. Also, one of the great discoveries during the pandemic was, they were worried about what would happen. When an elephant is orphaned, they have to switch overnight from drinking its mother’s milk to drinking a powdered milk formula that is really made for human babies. That is the most dangerous time for orphans. They come into the sanctuary, and they often can’t handle that transition from drinking their own mother’s milk to a powdered milk formula, so 50 percent of the time, they die. Reteti got worried during the pandemic about what would happen if we can’t even get ahold of the powdered milk formula because of supply chains breaking down. They started looking at nature for solutions, and they discovered that goats eat the same, browse the same vegetation as elephants do. They started experimenting, and they made perhaps one of their greatest discoveries. They went from a 50 percent survival rate to a 98 percent survival rate. Now these babies come into the sanctuary, and they’re able to make that transition. Another piece of the story, which I love, is that all that money that was being sent outside the country to big multinational milk companies — now that money’s all staying within the community. I went with the milk mamas, is what they call them. It’s the women Samburu who own the goats, and they set up bank accounts for the first time in their lives. They’re able to send their kids to school, to have money for healthcare. It’s absolutely changing the whole community. o own the goats, and they set up bank accounts for the first time in their lives. They’re able to send their kids to school, to have money for healthcare. It’s absolutely changing the whole community. The people there always tell me, “It’s not us saving the baby elephants. The elephants are saving us.” I just love watching all the discoveries they keep making. They have had a long relationship over generations, living with wildlife. They have so much to teach all of us. I think there is this great understanding happening around the world that there’s so much knowledge. We, as Westerners, need to start listening to some of the knowledge that is right there with the people living closest to these creatures. Now, you did conflict photojournalism for about 10 years. Risk aside, was it fun?…

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