There is a Maasai saying: ‘If you are bold and clever, try to put a necklace on an elephant’.
The Maasai elephant name is Oletome.
Oletome means ‘magnificent very big’.
There is still that affinity between elephants and the Maasais.
My name is David Leto.
I'm an elephant project officer for WWF.
We have developed several ways of minimising the impact of a human-elephant conflict.
Elephants use specific pathways.
So by getting the software to monitor them, we can know which pathway they're using.
Fixing a collar to an elephant is not a very easy exercise.
Poaching… it is really important for us to know that this specific group
we have collared is in that specific location.
We have community rangers. I advise them on how to go about patrols,
training them on better techniques, training them on various
methods of collecting data from their patrols.
I have a son, I love him.
When I go home in the evening, the first thing he does is pick up my phone,
and tells me go to my gallery and show him the beautiful photos of elephants.
The Maasai kids can probably see an elephant before they can ever see a car.
I'm standing on a very important ground to me.
My dad was killed by an elephant around this place.
I was 10 years old.
When I think about the elephant that killed my father, I feel very bad, l feel like...
This is nonsense - this whole group [of elephants] should be brought down.
Something that changed my mind was my mother.
It was her desire that I should go to the university
and take a course relating to elephant conservation.
And again, I really wanted to know what really drives elephants to cause human death.
60% of elephants and other wildlife are outside protected areas,
So it means their community lands - so there's that conflict.
They get speared, they get arrowed. Of course the elephant will die.
It’s very very challenging to convince the local people to buy into the idea of elephant conservation.
I'm actually an ambassador, telling the community that you should know their value,
these animals are not here by mistake.
My wishes regarding the future of my family and elephants
is seeing a secured, improving wild elephant population.
They cannot speak.
It is paramount that they have somebody speaking for them.