Benson Leyian grew up in a Maasai community in the shadow of Kenya’s Kilimanjaro, roaming the same grasslands he now works to protect as CEO of Big Life Foundation .

We caught up with him outside the world-famous Amboseli National Park, with a herd of elephants grazing just behind him — part of a landscape that Conservation International and Big Life Foundation are working together to protect — and asked how a boy who once ran from a lion hunt became the man working today to save the savanna .

How does it feel to stand in this spot with elephants grazing behind you?

Benson Leyian: There is a story here that speaks right to my heart. This is a corridor where elephants and lions and all of this wildlife have sanctuary to move into the Chyulu Hills and beyond, into Tanzania. Animals don't stay inside park boundaries. They follow the rain, the grass, whatever the season is asking of them. And for them to do that, this space has to stay open.…