Original subtitles

Rhinos have become the face of extinction.

But in this place, they have been offered a narrow path to survive.

Between 1970 and 1980, 98% of Kenya's black rhinos

were killed, the victims of human greed and desire.

Kenya's response was desperate.

With just 300 black rhinos left, they fenced them in.

The protected zones were called conservancies,

enclaves guarded by laws and lethal force.

Elite rangers were recruited from the edges of the new zones.

The poachers learned to fear them.

And for much of Kenya, poaching has become a memory.

The rhino population rebounded.

In the north, Liberana and Lewa, together, they are

one of the most successful rhino habitats on earth.

They have become a paradise.

Conservancies united by an open border and a single mission.

Save the species.

Kiloku is the lead rhino monitor and one of Kenya's best trackers.

His knowledge has been inherited over generations.

His team must find every rhino, every day.

When night falls, the armed anti-poaching rangers take over.

They are always watching. Always ready.

Kenya stopped the poaching of rhinos

but now faces a crisis born from its success.

Rhinos are killing each other for territory.

The conservancies are vast, but the very fences that save the rhinos

also define the perimeters of gladiatorial arenas.

Each male will take a territory 10 square kilometers in size to find a mate.

And they will fight to the death for it.

The ranger's connection here is deep.

For centuries, their ancestors have shaped this land,

leading their cattle along invisible paths to pastures hidden to the untrained.

The villages on the Conservancy's edge are the birthplaces of most of the rangers.

Kiloku is Maasai.

As a child, he tended his family's livestock.

And as a young warrior, he protected the herd from predators and bandits.

Borana exists in the shadow cast by this forest.

But there's a curse amongst these trees.

The villages between the Conservancy boundaries and the Mukogodo

are besieged by raids from cattle-stealing bandits.

A contest fought with fists and spears has become a deadly

game played with firearms from the continent's civil wars.

The rangers rely on whispers from informants to stem a resurgence of poaching.

Deeper in the forest, villages lie empty.

Ghost towns abandoned after months of banditry violence,

made worse by a drought, slowly creeping through the landscape.

On the fringes of the ranger's territory lives Teresa, the final resident.

She has become their eyes.

Cattle are not just livestock here.

They're currency.

And the bandits are Kenya's bank robbers.

A rhino horn can be worth more than a hundred thousand dollars on the black market.

Each rhino carries a death sentence on their head.

As long as banditry thrives, rhinos cannot exist in this forest.

Opening wildlife corridors gives male rhinos an escape route from large arrivals.

This buys the Conservancies time, but it's only a temporary fix.

They need more space.

West of Borana is Loisaba Conservancy, a perfect new habitat.

It's a hundred miles away,

but moving rhinos is fraught with danger and must be a last resort.

A recent attempt to translocate rhinos to a different Conservancy ended in disaster.

All eleven rhinos moved to Savo East National Park... died.

This time it is an even more ambitious relocation,

moving over 20 rhinos under the watch of a new team.

Rita is university educated and the next generation.

The habitat is almost ready

but Rita is green in the field.

The black rhino can be an extremely violent animal.

And if Rita is to survive being around them, she must learn from the best.

Each and every rhino in Kenya has a unique number, given at birth.

The team must know exactly which rhinos need to be moved.

Marking them through ear notching is a cornerstone of Kenya's strategy.

They waited.

But rain didn't come.

And another season passed under cloudless skies.

As the drought swept deeper into Borana, the land withered.

Predators thrived on the weary.

But rhinos continued to be born.

The number of black rhinos in Kenya broke 1,000 for the first time in 50 years.

What should be a moment of triumph is overshadowed by a difficult reality.

Without space, survival may be fleeting.

The fight for territory became more fierce.

Food for rhinos was scarce.

Outside the fences, pastures became scorched earth.

And livestock people depend on couldn't survive.

Desperation became starvation.

Radicalized by hunger, poaching surged.

But not for profit, for food.

Animals and humans were forced into small pockets of pasture.

Conflict was simmering and the bandits were ready.

The few people left fled their homes.

The rangers, once guardians of wildlife, were forced into a new role.

They became protectors of their communities

Johnson Saruru's patrol was ambushed. He was killed.

Five other members of his team were injured.

150 rangers fall in silence each year,

fighting not for riches or glory, but for nature.

They protect places not heard of by many.

They die not as heroes or martyrs, but as stewards.

Their names fade to the ether, yet they represent the best in all of us.

After four years of drought, the rains fell upon this land

with a ferocity that the most seasoned couldn't anticipate.

Blood was washed from the soil into rivers that swelled beyond their banks,

as the landscapes erupted with color.

Clouds retreated to reveal the beauty of life restored.

Animals and humans feasted to replenish lost flesh.

With food abundant, the rhinos could finally be moved to Loisaba.

Rhinos are returning to the place they were wiped out from just 60 years ago.

Rita as their guardian.

Good morning.

What we are doing today is correcting mistakes that were done many years ago.

Had we not started the process of protecting the rhinos and ensuring that

they are not hunted and they don't die and they are taken care of,

today we'd be talking about rhinos being extinct.

So this is being done to ensure that we continue growing the population of rhinos.