[MUSIC]
DINO J. MARTINS: Since the very dawn of time,
people and wildlife have been
part of Mpala’s landscape.
KITILI MBATHI: Mpala is located on the slopes
of Mount Kenya in Laikipia where
animals are able to roam freely
in their natural habitat.
DINO J. MARTINS: Wildlife has been increasing,
actually, in number, in this part
of the world, whereas in many
parts of the world, wildlife is
actually decreasing.
The priority for this land is
science, research, conservation,
and education.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
DAN RUBENSTEIN: Mpala was a ranch, originally.
When George Small inherited it
from his brother, he wanted to
preserve his brother’s legacy.
JEFFREY GONYA: Back when I was about 27 years old,
George came to our law firm.
He was interested in
preserving Mpala for wildlife
and for science and research.
Since George was a Princeton
graduate, he was very interested
in having Princeton involved.
DENNIS KELLER: In about 1990 he went to
Princeton and said, how would
you like a 50,000-acre ranch in Kenya?"
And Princeton said,
"If there was a research center on
that land, we could probably
participate in that."
Princeton recruited the
Smithsonian, and then George
recruited the National Museums of Kenya
and the Kenya Wildlife Service.
MARGARET KINNAIRD: Our mission here is to look at
how humans and wildlife can live
together sustainably.
SANDY ODOUR: Let’s say an elephant has a
wound and it has been reported
on the neighboring community.
We call the Kenya Wildlife Service
to come and immobilize the elephant
and treat it.
MATTHEW MUTINDA: We have a synergistic relationship
with Mpala Research Centre.
They are able to report
sick wildlife and we are able to
take them. And post-treatment,
they are able to monitor it.
SUBJECT: Let's do a good job, guys!
KITILI MBATHI: As a private research center,
scientists at Mpala able to
control their experiments
in ways that they wouldn't
be able to in national parks.
DINO J. MARTINS: Mpala is truly unique in that it
allows scientists and students
to engage in long-term
experiments at a landscape scale.
GEOFFREY MWACHALA: Climate change is a big concern
and it's going to be a growing
topic of engagement. We have
partnered with the Smithsonian
Institution. And we have
developed this huge piece of
land where we are monitoring
tree growth and vegetation change.
So this is the first time,
actually, we have an opportunity
to see, what is the role of wild
vegetation in addressing some of
this problem that we are having.
JEFFREY GONYA: In 1992 or maybe 1994,
George and I went out into a field
and laid out some rocks where he
thought the research center
should be. The first building of the
research center was built in 1995.
PAULA KAHUMBU: I was in one of the earliest
classes that came to Mpala as a
Princeton graduate student
starting my Ph.D. I was the only
I was the only Kenyan at that time.
There was no center, we camped
by the riverside, we cooked our
own meals, we slept in little
pup tents, and it was amazing.
The place was teeming with wildlife.
Since then it's been really
exciting to see how it's
blossomed into this
international institution that
is providing a base for African
scientists who can interact with
scientists all over the world.
DINO J. MARTINS: We have scientists and students
from over 40 different
institutions and countries
working at Mpala currently.
SUBJECT: Twenty point two-seven.
SUBJECT: Free to go.
DINO J. MARTINS: We’ve had some major
discoveries. Papers have been
published in the world’s leading
journals. Of the top 10
universities in the world, nine
of them are currently working at Mpala.
CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: Over the past 25 years there's
been a wonderful relationship
between Princeton University and
the Mpala Research Centre.
We have faculty in a wide variety
of fields going over to
undertake original research
projects and accompanying them
are undergraduate students and
graduate students.
DAN RUBINSTEIN: Okay, as soon as you hit that okay, now it's logging.
CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: What goes on in Mpala
exemplifies perfectly what we
aim at here at Princeton which
is a seamless blending of
teaching and research with
faculty and students working together.
DAN RUBENSTEIN: Teaching in the field is
completely different from
teaching on campus.
When they come to a field setting,
it's total immersion from dawn til
way after dusk. And we become
partners in generating knowledge.
Well, there's two right there.
CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: One of the genuinely special
things about Mpala is the way
that it takes students out of
the world that they've known and
exposes them to things that are
utterly different and some of
that is about what it means to
do research on the ground in a
place unlike where they've been before.
ZOE SIMS: Living and learning at Mpala has
shaped me in ways that I never
expected. As an undergrad,
I think I felt pressure to follow
a certain path that was really
known. But what was really
important for me in taking the
opportunities to research abroad
as an undergrad, it has felt to
me like choosing more of an
unknown path and really embracing that.
I think that’s what life is all
about right, is finding
meaningful challenges.
[MUSIC]
DON GRAHAM: Where I've gotten feedback from
students that has been the most
positive is where the
educational opportunities were
shared with Kenyan university
students. That was a
collaboration with and making
friends with people that have
had varied backgrounds and very
different experiences.
SUBJECT: Light green, light green, orange.
[MUSIC]
DINO J. MARTINS: For the next 25 years, we need
to invest in the
capacity-building of young
African scientists who will go
on to shape not just change in
Africa, but across the world.
Dedan, who's one of our young
scientists from Karatina
University, working on the
African wild dog, he's been
working in local communities
because rabies is one of the
biggest threats, to people and
livestock, as well as endangered
species like African wild dog
and cheetah.
DEDAN NGATIA: What is very interesting here in
Laikipia is you never find such
coexistence anywhere where
people, wildlife, livestock are
living very close to each other.
Our main concern right now is,
what does that mean for disease
transmission.
For us, to ensure that we get to
be rabies-free, we need to get a
coverage of 70% of the total
population of dogs in three
consecutive years.
The big idea is not just to
vaccinate domestic dogs. The big
idea is about protecting people,
protecting wildlife, and
protecting livestock.
DINO J. MARTINS: By developing a campaign to
vaccinate domestic dogs across
this landscape, Dedan has
engaged and empowered
communities, but he's taken
science and used it as an
evidence-based intervention to
solve a problem.
[SQUEAL]
In a couple of years, we will be
able to say we've eradicated
rabies from Laikipia.
[BARKING]
KITILI MBATHI: Mpala is well-known for
conducting research around the
cohabitation of wildlife and lifestock.
And this is an
increasingly important area.
JACOB LOKORERE: We keep cattle, goat, sheep and
camels. A lion coming to the
boma (corral), kills an animal,
I mean you can’t stand and watch.
We used to kill them.
STEVE EKWANGA: Today we are also using the GPS
collar to make the management of
lion and cattle very easy.
This collar sends information via
satellite to the computer. Shows
you where exactly the lions are.
So if the boma (cattle corral)
is nearby, you go there and warn
herders. Say, you know, “Lions
are very close by.”
JACOB LOKORERE: I had some lions that came into
my property and I got an email
from the Mpala Research Centre.
And I could get from the Google
Map, and I could locate where
lions were in my property.
I think it’s a positive thing
because it’s a preventive measure.
GEOFFREY MWACHALA: Right from when Mpala Research
Centre was started, an
underlying principle was that
this is not going to be an
isolated laboratory. We are part
of humanity, we are part of
society. So we have continuously
maintained an engagement with
the surrounding communities.
We have contributed
significantly in terms of
health, especially reproductive
health of the surrounding
communities, as well as their
general education.
Through Mpala, not only do we provide
scholarships to young people in
primary schools, elementary
schools, but we also offer
opportunities for internship so
that these graduates, when they
finish high school, they can
come back and begin to learn
from their work in Mpala,
whether it is research,
administrative, so they begin
to get hands-on.
[CHILDREN PLAYING]
DINO J. MARTINS: Mpala today is an incredibly
robust environment for young
African scientists to go into the field
alongside peers from all over
the world and learn and discover.
One of the students who’s
benefitted from the partnership
with Mpala is Kennedy.
Kennedy was my student working in my lab
on butterflies, and today
Kennedy is joining Princeton as
a Ph.D. student thanks to the
opportunity that he was
connected with at Mpala.
KENNEDY SAITOTI: Mpala is a very big shaping part
of my life. It's where I really
gathered a lot of my research
experience. I met a lot of
illustrious scientists from
different scopes of the world.
It's through Mpala that actually
I was able to narrow down what I
really want to do.
I was raised in a very humble
background in the biggest slum
in Africa. I don't think I would
have pictured myself even
just finishing high school.
The moment I received the
admission to Princeton, that was
the best moment in my life.
Right now I'm studying the
evolution of social behavior in bees.
I've worked with bees on
ecological perspectives in Kenya.
They play a very crucial role.
Princeton offered one of those
labs that actually was looking into that.
It was it was a perfect match for me.
Whatever questions I wanted to ask,
one lab was specifically looking at
everything that actually
I wanted to know.
DINO J. MARTINS: One of the programs that we’re
very, very proud of here at
Mpala is our educational work.
Mpala works with over 12
different schools in the
immediate neighborhood located
in rural pastoralist communities
through the northern Kenya
conservation clubs.
MARGARET KINNAIRD: We're building a huge cadre of
conservationists in this
generation right now, not just
for the next generation.
It gives me great joy to listen to
someone who came here when they
were a young child that has gone
through the conservation clubs
and they are full out wildlife
conservationists.
DAN RUBENSTEIN: Learning about the animals is important,
learning about biodiversity
is important, but understanding
the dynamics of the ecosystem
is actually more important.
You get them outside, they’re
enthusiastic, they get their
parents connected, and then the
community starts to realize that
these kids are learning. And so
you’re starting to see kids
becoming more confident in their
own ability to learn just in general.
PAULA KAHUMBU: When I finished my Ph.D., I
started working in conservation
and looking at what are the most
powerful ways that we can
influence future generations of
Kenyans who will become the
wildlife warriors of the future,
the people who will decide on
the fate of this extraordinary wildlife
that we have in this country.
SUBJECT: It blends in with the grass!
SUBJECT: Exactly!
SUBJECT: It does, doesn't it? Camouflage.
I don't want to touch it.
PAULA KAHUMBU: One of the most powerful tools
we have is citizen science.
That is a, is it a Grevy or is it a...?
Plain. Plain?
You cannot watch zebras and not fall
in love with them when you’re
busy studying them and trying to
take photographs of them.
And we've done this with children
because we believe that that is
when a switch can happen
and conservation becomes
tattooed on us forever.
[CHILDREN TALKING] SUBJECT: Okay, wait, wait.
DAN RUBENSTEIN: In 2016 we did a complete census
of Grevy Zebra, which is an
endangered species that live in Kenya.
DINO J. MARTINS: The citizen science data has
shown us that the Grevy Zebra
has a population that is
recovering and rising.
DAN RUBENSTEIN: The only way we can do a true
census is to have lots of
different people involved taking
photographs. What more important
people than school kids? So we
have school children driving
around in buses, it keeps them
engaged, they learn, and
therefore they start to become
champions and ambassadors of the species.
PAULA KAHUMBU: It's incredible how things have grown –
the center, the number of students,
the amount of research.
It's, I think, beyond
anyone's wildest expectations
when the center was started.
DINO J. MARTINS: The first genomics lab in
sub-Saharan Africa is now up and
running at Mpala.
Working with our Kenyan veterinary fellow
from The Smithsonian, Dr. Maureen Kamal,
students from Princeton and Columbia
conducted the first genome microbiome
sequencing for black rhino,
Grevy Zebra, and cheetah.
I see a future of Mpala where we
robustly engage in solving the
problems that we face,
whether in Africa or globally,
by bringing the brilliance and
passion and curiosity of
students and scientists from
around the world to really
make a difference.
PAULA KAHUMBU: Imagine if a thousand African students
were able to engage at Mpala
and learn about all this biodiversity.
Those people will end up
influencing policy, decision-making,
and visions for the future
of our biodiversity.
I don't think there's really a
limit to how much this place can do.
[MUSIC]