Ol Pejeta’s New Global Ambassador

Ami said on Instagram, 'It has been a privilege to have spent more than a decade documenting [Ol Pejeta's] dedication to saving the last living northern white rhinos and preserving and caring for so many other precious species like black rhinos, grevy's zebras, leopards, wild dogs, elephants, lions, cheetahs, hyenas, giraffe and many more. Ol Pejeta Conservancy is home to all of the Big Five and so much more life that needs our attention and love too. It is the largest black rhino sanctuary in East Africa, and soon they will welcome their 150th black rhino! The real ambassadors are the people here whose commitment and courage is contagious. My role is only to amplify their work in every way possible. I am filled with tremendous humility and know that they are the REAL ambassadors.'

National Geographic readers voted a heartbreaking photograph by Ami Vitale as the top photograph of the decade. Vitale’s image shows the moment just before Sudan, the last male northern white rhinoceros on earth, died. In the photo, Sudan is comforted by Joseph Wachira, a caretaker at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, in Kenya. 

“Watching a creature die—one who is the last of its kind—is something I hope never to experience again,” Vitale wrote of the image on Instagram. “It felt like watching our own demise. My hope is that this heartbreaking moment will be our wake up call. These giants are part of a complex world created over millions of years, and their survival is intertwined with our own. Without rhinos and elephants and other wildlife, we suffer a loss of imagination, a loss of wonder, a loss of beautiful possibilities. When we see ourselves as part of nature, we understand that saving nature is really about saving ourselves. Sudan taught me that.”