Ian needs minimal introduction, having achieved numerous amounts within the Conservation sector here in Kenya. In 1983 Craig, along with his father and the late Anna Merz, started the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy (then called Ngare Sergoi Sanctuary) on the northern slopes of Mt Kenya. The conservancy quickly turned into a model of community and wildlife conservation and a catalyst for similar conservancies in northern Kenya; of which the Sera Conservancy is but just one example. Craig stood at the helm of Lewa as the Executive Director until 2009 and, in 2004, spearheaded the formation of the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), an umbrella body that supports community conservancies across northern and eastern Kenya. Today the NRT covers the norther frontier of prime dryland wildlife territory and together help develop, support and fund thousands of people in hundreds of communities.

Alice Bromage is a former UK Army officer and now acts as a consultant to businesses on resilience, leadership and growth. For the last four years she has worked, sometimes for months at a time, with Africa's only all-female anti-poaching unit, the Black Mambas, in the Greater Kruger park, South Africa. In this conversation Alice will share her story of working with the Black Mambas, the issues that have faced them and the extraordinary success they have had in this dangerous world - aided by the fact they are unarmed female guards up against heavily armed, often desperate male poaching groups.

Ian started his conservation love as a research scientist in charge of monitoring Lewa’s rhino population. Along with being a commercial pilot performing wildlife monitoring and rescue missions. His passion for wildlife is second to none as he attended college at Kenya Wildlife Service Training Institute from 2011-2013 to earn my diploma in Environmental Management. Upon graduating he became a volunteer with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) in Conservation Research and the Veterinary and Capture Department for a year and a half. During that time, he was deeply involved with rhino activities including monitoring, data entry, ear notching and translocations. His love for wildlife only increased from those experiences, and from the animals that he had the privilege of taking care of in the orphanage at Nairobi National Park. The Nairobi orphanage supports conservation through receiving animals that have been abandoned by their mothers or animals that are injured and cannot survive in the wild. The animals are brought in from all over Kenya by KWS veterinary capture teams and private conservancies. It was during this time that he realised it is far more useful to conserve these majestic species at the landscape level, rather than raising orphans as a result of poaching. Now he works with the elephant R.E.S.C.U.E sanctuary in Namunyak conservancy for the NRT.

Richard was born into conservation and from a early age adopted it completely. Starting humbly with 4 game scouts in the Amboseli ecosystem and growing it exponentially to what Big Life is today, spanning over 300,000 acres of massai land. Bringing about change was his ethos, and managing the partnership conservation and involve the local community, through economic incentive-based conservation enterprises, employment and participating in law enforcement directly themselves. He set up The Maasailand Preservation Trust which he started has played an integral part in setting up health clinics, schools and a Wildlife scholarship program that has put hundreds of students through school. The Maasailand Preservation Trust also pioneered a Predator Compensation project that now covers over 700.000 acres of the ecosystem. This economic incentive-based approach is attempting to turn the tide of looming local extinction of predators. These predators, especially lion, are being killed in retaliation for their killing of livestock, on which the local community depend upon for their livelihood.