‘our elephants, our neighbours’: a documentary film on the elephant-human relation in Kenya

Abstract

This film, Our Elephants, Our Neighbours‘, came out of a question that is posed on a hill top in Tsavo West National Park, Would you take a bullet for a Jumbo?‗ The film is an attempt to address the social problem of the conflict between human beings and wildlife as well as environmental conservation. This film used the Kino-eye to highlight human wildlife conflict in Meru County. Satao, ‗the biggest Tusker as at 2014 is used as a benchmark to interrogate human wildlife conflict. The film becomes a figurative bullet for the Jumbo. Residents of Gankere in Meru County tell their real life encounters with jumbos that visit on a daily basis. The interviews of the residents shed light on the problem as faced by local residents. The film highlights a social problem and explores the dynamics of the human wildlife conflict.