We heard the kill, but we couldn’t see it. The yips were unmistakable, it was an impala. By the time we scratched our way through the underbrush and managed to find them, there was nothing left. Only hyena scraps. The dogs gnawed at pieces of bones while the scavenging group of hyenas which follow the dogs at a sometimes safe, sometimes not-so safe distance, were picking up the leftovers. The dogs are expert hunters, using a method where, as a pack, they fan out and flush out dikdik, impala, and anything unlucky enough to be caught in the middle of the chaos. @andreas.fox.safaris told me that they have a word they use to describe the dogs on the vhf radio. It roughly translated to: ‘Chaos.’ “Chaos is moving...”. “We’ve found chaos...” “Chaos has made a kill...” As an onlooker, nothing quite describes the pack as well as that. However, I think what we view as chaos is actually a perfectly orchestrated chorus of killing. In two hours with the dogs, they killed upwards of 10 dikdiks and an impala. — Here, one of the dogs stops for a brief second mid hunt. If you look, there is a slight tinge of blood remaining on his neck from the impala kill.

In Ancient Greek folklore the phoenix is a bird which regenerates from the ashes of its predecessor. You’ve probably heard the term: Rising from the ashes. Well, meet Northern Kenya’s wild dog pack aptly named ‘The Phoenix Pack’ because they did just that…rose from the ashes. Wild dog have been listed as an endangered species since 1990 and, in northern Kenya, the wild dog population was pretty much annihilated in 2017 due to an outbreak of canine distemper. Being susceptible to various types of canine diseases, the dogs contracted distemper from herder dogs which had moved into their territory. The entire population of wild dog across Laikipia, which consisted of numerous packs across large areas, died except for a very few survivors from different packs. Over the past 2-3 years, the Phoenix Pack have made a spectacular comeback to a healthy number of around 20 dogs and the alpha female is due to give birth to a new litter of pups any day now. — Here a group of youngsters from the Phoenix Pack inspect my camera sitting on the ground before they ran off for a hunt.

Najin, one of the last two Northern White rhinos on the planet, gets a belly rub from Jacob, her keeper, at Ol Pejeta conservancy in Northern Kenya. — When we look at the long term survival of species in the midst of growing pressures on habitat, seeing any kind of success will require creative scientific endeavors. In this case, research is being done to see if IVF can be used to implant the fertilized embryo from a northern white rhino male and female into a surrogate southern white rhino. Since both surviving northern whites are female and can’t conceive, scientists have been harvesting their eggs and inseminating them with frozen semen from a no-longer-alive male. It’s an innovative technique which is being pioneered on @olpejeta conservancy. In this curious time of wondering where the new power structures and finances will fall after the Covid-19 crisis ends, it’s critically important that we all push for science to play a larger role in our everyday lives.

During the covid-19 crisis, rural communities across Northern Kenya, especially those which depend on tourism, have seen most of their livelihoods dry up. Not dissimilar to what is happening in the US and Europe, many have lost jobs and/or seen pay cuts become the new norm. However, in the developed world, access to credit and relief funds have helped lighten the load of some negative impacts, whereas across parts of rural Kenya there is no access to these, as well, there are very few social safety net programs. — I’ve been traveling around Kenya the last few weeks and I’m working on a project we are calling: The faces of tourism. We are doing portraits of individuals who have been impacted by the Covid-19 crisis and portraits of the individuals who are responsible for seeing our tourism industry function and seeing that wildlife are safe and valued. This is one of the portraits I did last week in Laikipia. — Paul Lemanyaas is a Laikipia Maasai who works at @karisiawalkingsafaris as a tracker and guide. It is often local community members who are most responsible for seeing that space is kept for wildlife and it is these same community members who have lived among those wildlife for generations. I have immense respect for people like Paul who welcome tourists into their space and community, and share their hard earned knowledge of the bush with these visitors.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, tourism revenues worldwide have taken a plunge. I think there is a very interesting conversation to be had about how we value biodiversity globally. In some parts of the world such as Kenya, the value of biodiversity is linked inexorably to tourism. Very few reasonable and viable alternatives for valuing wildlife and wild spaces exist outside of the fickle tourism markets. So when tourism is good, wildlife and land-use see stable increases in their overall health because revenues from that industry are pumped into local communities and conservation outfits. But, when a major downturn in tourism occurs, we expect that communities and wildlife areas which depend of that revenue will be forced to look elsewhere for livelihoods. In many cases, poaching and bushmeat trade is a viable option especially when the perceived value of wildlife declines with the tourism industry. We must do a better job at finding alternative mechanisms for valuing biodiversity globally otherwise with every downturn in tourism, we will see a downturn in the health of our wildlife and wild spaces. — Here, Selash, a @biglifeafrica community wildlife ranger, stands with the head of a giraffe which was poached in the northern part of the Amboseli ecosystem last week. Rangers recovered the giraffe and much of the meat before it reached the markets along the Mombasa Road corridor. @jeremy.goss told me that the rangers reckon you can get around 400kg of meat from an adult giraffe. He said they are seeing an uptick in the amount of poaching occurring within the areas they monitor and that is a worrying indicator of a bleak and difficult outlook of what is to come. It is too early to know if the number of poaching incidents will sustain at these higher levels, but it is my assumption that without tourism revenues feeding families, they will look elsewhere to put food on the table. I would do the same.

Sunrise from the shark’s fin on Mount Poi in the Ndoto mountains of Northern Kenya. Shot in December 2016 while on a climbing expedition with The North Face. — Mount Poi has the tallest rock face in Kenya at somewhere between 700-800 meters in height.

Patterns on Lake Magadi in Southern Kenya. Trona, which is a mineral, is mined and converted into soda ash at the Tata-owned Magadi processing plant and then exported out to the rest of the world. Soda ash is used in the manufacturing processes of everyday household products such as glass, detergents, and paper.

An outrigger canoe navigates the blue waters of the Kenya coastline. Extending 600km from the Somali to Tanzanian border, Kenya’s coastline has an almost continuous fringing reef that runs parallel to the coastline. These reefs are home to an abundance of underwater life including large species such as dolphins, migratory whales, and five species of sea turtle, two of which regularly nest on Kenya’s beaches. With an assortment of coral reefs, sea grass meadows, mangrove swamps, and sandy beaches, the Kenya coast has a diverse set of habitat. — Kenya has over 600 square km of Marine Protected Areas, also called MPAs. These are zones set aside to conserve biological diversity and protect from human pressures. These MPAs play a critical role in the preservation of our coastal ecosystems as our fisheries are coming under greater and greater pressure from a growing global population.

Workers harvest salt on the salt flats of the Danakil Depression in Northern Ethiopia. Most of this is transported out of the Danakil via camel caravan and used across Ethiopia for livestock consumption.

At the northern end of the Afar depression lies a cinder-cone volcano called Dallol. In the Cushtic Afari language, Dallol roughly translates to ‘disintegration’ which is the word the Afari use to describe the acidic ponds created from the volcano. The discharge is a type of brine or high salinity water mixed with acidic liquid similar to what you’d find in the pools at Yellowstone National Park in the US. Nothing stands in between you and the acidic pools besides the misfortune of one misstep and a disinterested guard with an AK-47. — Dallol holds the record for the hottest inhabited place on earth with ambient temperatures soaring in upwards of 113F degrees every day, with a maximum recorded temperature of 135F degrees. On the day we were there, nothing was out of the ordinary. At 7:30am, the temps were already breaking 100F degrees and standing amidst the brine pools you could look beyond them to see the remnants of an old set of buildings which were used for potash mining abandoned in the 1960s. Its clear how unforgiving of a landscape the Danakil is. Only minor foundations remain from the buildings, eaten away by a salinic, almost acidic and oppressive air.

The community of Gunda Gunde in remote northern Ethiopia was founded in the late 14th century. Fleeing persecution from the mainstream Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the pilgrims found refuge in the remote and inaccessible mountains on the Afari-Tigrayan border, only a few miles from modern day Eritrea. The community constructed a monastery, which because of its remoteness, was never conquered by Imam Ahmad during the Abssynian-Adal war in the late 16th Century, which saw nearly 75% of predominantly Orthodox Christian Ethiopia fall under Muslim rule. To date, the monastery is there and while it’s about a 2-day walk to the nearest road, it has maintained one of the largest collections of Ge’ez manuscripts in Ethiopia. If you zoom in on the left frame, you can see part of the community in the background. Built mostly using stone, the huts are scattered along the cliff side. — Shot from a helicopter in November, 2019.

A sailing dhow navigates a channel at low tide in the Bazaruto Archipelago off the coast of Mozambique. Established as a national park in 1971, the island chain and associated reefs are home to a vast amount of sea life. — To date, the Bazaruto is one of the coolest places I’ve been. I’d love to go back and spend more time photographing the undersea wildlife along the reefs. This image was shot from a helicopter in 2017.

Nile River, Central Uganda. September 2012.

It’s obligatory to wish you a Happy Earth Day, however at a time like this, it’s hard to imagine the earth is actually ‘Happy.’ We are in tough times. Many of you wonder why I post so many images of wildlife and wild spaces. Well, to me, the health of our wild spaces and the problems they face are the early warning signs of the problems soon to face humans. For instance, when illegal wildlife trade and consumption occurs, there are major negatives which eventually will face humanity. COVID-19 is an obviously tangible example of how mismanagement and misuse of wildlife and our environment can impact humans en masse. It’s critical that we take care of our wild spaces and our wildlife. I wrote a few weeks ago about how we should use this time to decide what it is that we want to take with us into the new world we will build post-covid. In my opinion, we are at an essential crossroads with wildlife in East Africa. Do we want the iconic species which inhabit our Savannas to be a part of the new world we are building or are we okay with merely the footprints and shadows that will remain if we don’t actively protect and make space for them. This Earth Day, my friends at @spaceforgiants asked me to participate in their #AHealthyEarth campaign. The team at @spaceforgiants work to do exactly what their name implies. Preserve the habitat and wild space needed for our iconic species across Africa to not only survive but thrive. I recommend checking out their campaign and the work they do.