Once a wildlife paradise, Amboseli National Park in Kenya has become a wasteland. For Undark, journalist Georgina Gustin and documentary photographer Larry C. Price document the stark and deadly conditions that animals at Amboseli have endured the past several years, caused by climate change-fueled drought. In addition to a parched and drastically changing environment, conflicts between herders and farmers and an increase in illegal poaching have contributed to an already dire situation. For some readers, Price’s photographs may be hard to look at. Gustin’s on-the-ground reporting, however, is essential.
The park draws tens of thousands of tourists a year and is a major economic engine for the region. Now these tourists pop their heads through the roofs of safari trucks, or sit inside, jabbing at their phones and looking blankly out the window, wondering how the trip of a lifetime turned into a vigil.
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