SAMBURU
The north where Africa feels ancient.
Of all the places I’ve journeyed, none compare to the wonder of Samburu.
My guide and I got lost on the way to Sarara. There are no main roads out here, no easy map — just tracks through semi-arid scrub that look identical to the last twenty kilometres of semi-arid scrub. We drove in silence for a while, recalibrating.
When we finally arrived, everything changed. The landscape opened into something green and dense and entirely unexpected — tall trees, rich canopy, and reticulated giraffes. Dozens of them. Crossing the track, moving through the trees, standing at the treeline watching us arrive.
Giraffe after giraffe crossed in front of the vehicle. Then one broke from the pattern. Instead of crossing and continuing, it turned toward us. Came to the vehicle. Put its head through the open window. I reached up and touched it. It stayed.
Rescued by Sarara as a calf, this giraffe had grown up around people, around vehicles, around the camp. Coming to say hello the way a dog does — with complete ease and no particular agenda.
What I hadn’t known was that this was what I was looking for when I got lost trying to reach it.
The Samburu people have lived in this landscape for generations — not alongside the wildlife, but as part of the same system. Their knowledge of the land, the animals, the water, and the seasons runs deeper than any research programme. It is inherited, accumulated, and daily.
The warriors I have photographed at Sarara are not performing a culture for visitors. The beadwork, the red shuka, the particular way a warrior stands in the landscape — these are not costumes. They are a language this land has spoken for a very long time.
What strikes me most, every time, is the quality of attention. The Samburu see this landscape the way I try to photograph it: with patience, with precision, and without the need to announce themselves. There is a great deal to learn from that.
These portraits are part of my ongoing People of Africa series — images that make the case that the wildlife story and the human story here are not separate. They have always been the same story.
Other Animals & Species Facts
Samburu’s Special Five — unique to northern Kenya — are the Grevy’s zebra, reticulated giraffe (with their bold, unmistakable patterning), Beisa oryx, gerenuk (the long-necked gazelle that stands on its hind legs to browse from low branches), and Somali ostrich.
In addition: elephants (often red-tinged from the dust, unlike their southern counterparts), lions, leopards, cheetahs, and crocodiles along the Ewaso Ng’iro river. The Samburu people themselves are part of the landscape — their presence, their knowledge of this land, and their stewardship of it are inseparable from its wildlife.
Grevy’s zebra numbers have declined from approximately 15,000 in the 1970s to fewer than 3,000 today. They are listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List.
The reticulated giraffe — found only in northern Kenya, southern Ethiopia, and Somalia — is the most endangered giraffe subspecies. Fewer than 16,000 remain in the wild.
SAMBURU LANDSCAPE
Samburu sits at around 900 metres elevation in northern Kenya. The Ewaso Ng’iro river is the lifeline — doum palms and riverine forest line its banks, crocodiles use its shallows, and the elephant families know every crossing.
Beyond the river the terrain is arid savannah, broken by dry riverbeds, volcanic rock, and distant mountain ranges.
Namunyak Conservancy to the north is wilder still — larger, less visited, and entirely community-managed across 850,000 acres of some of the least altered landscape in Kenya.
I adopted Long'uro. He is missing half his trunk — an injury that would have made survival in the wild impossible without intervention.
The Sarara Foundation and Reteti Elephant Sanctuary make the same argument in two different ways: communities who live alongside wildlife are not a threat to it. They are its best protection.
Reteti — Kenya’s first community-owned elephant sanctuary — sits inside the Namunyak Conservancy. The Samburu community runs it entirely, built to rescue, rehabilitate, and release orphaned elephants from across northern Kenya. Without this intervention, these calves would not survive.
The keepers are from the Samburu community — the same people who have always coexisted with elephants in this landscape. Their knowledge doesn’t come from a manual. Generations of understanding what elephants are, how they move, and what they need: that is what they bring to this work.
The Sarara Foundation funds this directly. Tourism revenue from Sarara Camp flows into the sanctuary’s operations, community employment, and conservation infrastructure across Namunyak. The camp and the sanctuary are not separate things — they are the same commitment in two different forms.
Sarara & Reteti Facts
Reteti Elephant Sanctuary was founded in 2016 and is the first elephant sanctuary in Kenya to be entirely community-owned and community-operated. All staff, including elephant keepers, are from the local Samburu community.
Orphaned calves at Reteti are rescued from across northern Kenya — victims of drought, human-wildlife conflict, and poaching. Each calf requires 24-hour care and a dedicated keeper for the first years of its life.
The Sarara Foundation, which supports Reteti’s operations, also funds anti-poaching patrols, water infrastructure, education programmes, and community health initiatives across the Namunyak Conservancy.
In Samburu, the land and the people are not separate. They have always been the same argument.
field notes
TRAVEL WITH INTENTION
Samburu pairs naturally with a Laikipia leg — Loisaba or Lewa-Borana. Together they form a northern Kenya circuit with the widest range of species and the most compelling conservancy stories in the region.
My knowledge of where and when each species shows best in this landscape makes the difference between a trip and something you carry forward.
SARARA CAMP
SARARA FOUNDATION
Sarara sits inside the Namunyak Wildlife Conservancy
A community-owned and managed conservancy covering 850,000 acres of northern Kenya. The camp is small and unhurried, built to be present in its landscape rather than imposed upon it.
Every aspect of Sarara’s operation is built around community benefit: staff are from the local Samburu community, revenue flows directly into schools, water projects, and anti-poaching patrols. Elephants use the area as a corridor, and the community knows them by family.
This is the model I look for when I choose where to stay: a place where the wildlife is protected because the people protecting it have a direct stake in its future. Sarara is one of the clearest examples I know of.
Namunyak Wildlife Conservancy
The Samburu community established Namunyak Wildlife Conservancy in 1995. At 850,000 acres, it is one of the largest and most successful community conservancies in Kenya — entirely owned and managed by the people who live within it.
Anti-poaching here is community-led and funded by tourism revenue. Every patrol, every water project, every school: the conservancy’s continuation serves the long-term interest of everyone living alongside it.
Wildlife here exists because the community decided it should.
“People and wildlife thrive together, not apart — is the entire point of Namunyak, and one of its most compelling proofs.”
Deanna
