All language subtitles for Storyville.S2025E05.The.Battle.for.Laikipia.1080p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.HFR.H.264-RAWR_track4_[eng]

This programme contains some scenes
which some viewers may find
upsetting and some strong language

The reason why you see different
colours, colouration -

it's because of this
substance in the skin.

The skin pigment...

Yeah. Melanin.
..called the melanin, yeah.

Some others have more,
some others have less.

INDISTINCT RADIO COMMS

ARCHIVE: We're in a
golden return in Africa.

It is the ideal life

for the energetic
and enterprising.

African farmers
were herding livestock

long before any of them
had seen a white man.

Land, cultivated not at all,

was taken over by the white man,

populated with cattle,
and cultivated.

Ambitious plans have been
made to aid the African.

The criticism that Europeans
ignore the welfare of Africans

is being countered by
a higher standard of living.

The forced resettlement
of whole tribes

outside their traditional homes.

Thousands killed.

Surely it will not be necessary

to go on killing these defenceless
people on such an enormous scale.

A British family brutally
murdered by the Mau Mau.

The objective of this Mau Mau

is to drive all
white men out of Kenya.

We've been promised -
it was our land in perpetuity.

If it was handed over to the blacks,
one would have to leave,

and your children would
lose their heritage.

I don't think they
have anything to fear,

providing that they behave
as a good citizen.

Have you found that, since
independence, things have gone...

..as badly as you expected
or better than you expected?

Oh, they've gone better
than I expected.

Oh, far better.

They've gone infinitely better
than I thought they would.

It is places like Laikipia

that make some Kenyans begin to ask,

"Are we really independent?"

Foreigners own hundreds of
thousands of acres of land.

Who gave them this land?

Colonial-era inequalities endure,

even after Kenya's
independence in 1963.

CHATTER, CATTLE LOWING

SHEEP BLEAT

DOOR CLOSES

Hey, Mommy, what do
you think of the rain?

Um, well, what's going on right
now is not really rains, is it?

But we... I mean,
we haven't had much.

By the middle of April,
if it hasn't rained then...

..we start worrying.

Outside's pretty bare, I would say.

Um... We've got grass,

but we're being very careful
where the cattle are grazing,

how they're grazing it.

Yeah. Just to make sure they
don't eat all over the place.

Save places where it's
close to the...

Close to the main camp,

so if something goes wrong,
they can all eat there.

But, yeah, just eating
certain places and leaving...

..leaving lots of places
for the drought.

That's the insurances.

Fuck me. Yeah.

SHE LAUGHS

Uh, financially tough right now.

We're going to run out
of cash badly, no?

Why? It's our insurance
cheque, and...

..I haven't paid
their licences yet.

This farm, it's...

It's bigger than all of us.

The farm, it actually goes
back to before our father,

our grandfather, and to
our great-grandfather.

They left England and
went to South Africa,

and then left South Africa
and came here in about 1908.

And here we are,
four generations later.

You feel part of the whole jigsaw.

And that is a
responsibility that's...

It's so much bigger
than just a job.

INDISTINCT RADIO COMMS

INDISTINCT RADIO COMMS

Yeah, it's just the cows
are in the wrong place.

I don't want them here.

We've always had
a very good relationship

with the pastoralist tribes.

But as climate change kicks in more
and more, or becomes more obvious,

that puts huge
pressure on resource.

If you want to have good cattle
that are in good condition,

you know, even in a hard year,

they mustn't have to
walk far for water.

On this farm,
we actually have a much higher

carrying capacity than probably

any other ranch in Laikipia

because we have water.

CHANTING

In other news, six police officers
have been killed

and four others injured

during a gun battle with
bandits in Laikipia County.

Police County Commander
Richard Rotich confirmed

the death of the six, but said
he was still seeking more details

on the attack.

The more-than-200 bandits were
reportedly on a revenge mission

after the officers prevented them
from accessing neighbouring ranches.

The area has recently witnessed
several attacks on ranches,

but just yesterday, bandits
set ablaze Sosian ranch.

INDISTINCT RADIO COMMS

A lot of the communities
is British descendants

that have become naturalised -
they've been born in Kenya -

and, you know, it's
all we've all known.

We haven't been to England
and, you know, we know Kenya -

we speak the language.
That's all we know.

We were always very friendly

with the Samburu and all
the pastoralist communities.

Yeah, it was never...

I never thought of it even
once throughout my life.

It was never... It never occurred
to me that it was awkward

or anything like that.

This is our land,

and we have the right to
protect it and to stay here.

And we should have the
right to be protected.

Without it, I would be lost.

You know, without...without this.

And I don't know anything else.

I don't... I wouldn't want
to know anything else.

It's... It's who I am.

CATTLE LOW

LIVELY CHATTER

PHONE LINE RINGS

CATTLE LOW

Well done.

Loisaba Conservancy is a 56,000-acre
private wildlife and conservancy.

I've actually been here
since November '92.

So Loisaba for me
is very much my home -

I've been here more
than half my life.

Absolutely beautiful space.

I feel huge space up here.

You know, you can see often good
wildlife up here on the plains.

They like the short grass.

It's great that you've got zebra
and eland, and oryx, and hartebeest,

and Thomson's gazelle,
and Grant's gazelle.

Six, seven different species
of plains game here.

It's peaceful here.

You know, as far as the
eye can see, there's no...

..human...

..scar on the landscape, really.

And natural.

As it was.

It's so critical, Laikipia,
as a region, as a place.

I mean, in terms of endangered
large mammal species, you know,

it's probably one of the richest
areas for that in the world.

The wildlife economy is a
critically important part of

sustainably financing
conservation in Africa.

And we need to make sure
that a strong, well-managed

landscape creates benefits
for people that have lived

with wildlife for many, many years.

HORNS BEEPING

SHOUTING

SINGING

It's so peaceful,
it's so beautiful.

But underneath, there's so much.

It's like a little bubbling volcano.

When you look at the make-up
of the people who came here

in the early 1900s,

they had to have been...

..maybe slightly off-the-wall

because they were moving
out of wherever they came from -

whether it was England or,

you know...
They were intrepid people.

And here we are,
four generations later -

a huge section of Kenya doesn't
realise there are white Kenyans.

And that's what's really sad.

There's generations that -
they look at us,

we'll never be part of it.

And we never realised that,
I think,

because where we live
and where we work...

..we are accepted to a degree,

but...

..in the big picture, we're not.

Why we're here today.

Can the different cattle peoples -

the commercial ranchers
and the pastoralists -

live together?

And you've seen the press,
you've lived it in reality.

Those of us overseas,
we're reading it indirectly.

Land invasions in Kenya
portend election violence.

The one thing that's clear is
the old order has been overturned -

that, traditionally, during drought,

land sharing among neighbours
was commonplace.

Limited leasing was arranged
at favourable rates,

and this allowed herds
to come onto the commercial ranches

in a way as an insurance
policy - a buffer -

so that, after a crash,
some of the herds would survive

and could help the people rebuild.

But it was more of a tokenism
than a real interactive exchange

of truly sharing the land in a way
that's beneficial to both people.

The perfect storm this year of
a severe drought, an election,

massive herds owned by corrupt
and wealthy politicians and cartels,

angry youth and illegal
weapons have overturned

the established sharing practices.

Business as usual really is not
going to be able to persist.

Who are we dealing with
when we say "community",

when we say "neighbour"?

Our own predispositions are to
deal with the people who are most

receptive to our ideas, and most
receptive to our relationship.

The thing that we need to really
steer away from is supporting

the destruction of communal land,

and any negotiation or deal you get
into with pastoralist communities,

where there is no land tenure,

all you're doing is supporting
an industry that's destructive,

and you're prolonging the agony.

Really, the kindest thing to do -
the best thing to do -

and if we're talking about national
interests, is to...

..is to change pastoralism

and to bring them into
the commercial world.

Pastoralism is dying.

The question is, how slowly
and how violently will it die?

And if it dies slowly and
violently, well, all of us

who have the love and interest
and...who are part of this landscape

will go down with it.

..means for better land management

relative to
stopping the incursion...

HORNS BLARE

WHISTLING

CHATTER

Laikipia's prolonged
drought has resulted

in the invasion of private farms,
ranches and conservancies

by pastoralists in
search of grazing land.

These vast ranches here
in Laikipia County are now

the setting of a growing
confrontation between herders now

and police officers, who have been
on security operations

to drive them out of the ranches...

And it's turned
violent in some cases.

Police have recovered the body of a
British man shot at a private ranch

in the north of the country.

Friends have described
Tristan Voorspuy

as a true officer
and a gentleman.

He was shot dead yesterday

as he went to check
the remains of a lodge

which had been burnt down.

For almost 30 years,

he and his wife had run a luxury
safari company and ranch

in the northern region of Laikipia -

one of the most important

conservation areas in Kenya.

Oh, hello!

Hide behind it...

Hide behind it?

Can you see me?
SHE IMITATES SHOOTING

Yeah, that's a bit obvious!
Lie down.

It's not going to be very safe.

OK, I'll lie down.

And your security team's all sorted,

and they have a plan and things?

Yeah, they're good.
Only Minah's going for elections,

the rest are here. OK.

So we've got, like, plans for that,

and plans for if we get attacked.

Do you guys have, like,
a backup plan in...

Like, if things go
really, really bad?

Yeah - shoot them
until they all die.

CHUCKLING: No, but, like,
like REALLY bad.

What's really bad?

Like, really bad -
like, you guys have to get out.

Well, if they tried last
time with 50-odd people,

what do they have to do this time?

And now we've got
four G3s and a drone.

Yeah. That's true.

It's not going to get that bad.

"We're going to cook 'em down
with some napalm!"

Getting quite stressed.

Don't get stressed. We'll be fine.

We're ready. Yeah, we're ready.

Alrighty, Mama.
I'll talk to you later.

Cool. I'll have another look.

Yeah. Alrighty.
Have fun with Chris and Keith.

Love you. Love you.
Yeah, love you. Bye-bye.

Love you, love you.
Love you, love you. Bye-bye.

Bye!

Cheep-cheep-cheep!
Cheep-cheep! Bye!

Yeah, I know.
How's it going there?

Mm-hm.

Well done, well done. Fantastic.

..11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16,

17, 18, 19, 20,

21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28,

29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37,

38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46,

47, 48, 49, 50.

It's good?

Yeah.

Lyla and Lampika... Yeah.

..have just been at
a rally together.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

And Lampika has said
they're about to send me

the translator, Swahili,

Yeah. Saying, "Stay on the farm.

"They're yours, you can..."

They're trying to get the audio.

Um... Who? Mary.

Huh!

"Mathew Lempurkel told
his Samburu followers..."

TRANSLATION:

He says they have recorded all.

Good they record them.

Well, that's incitement, isn't it?

That is incitement.

Yeah.

But that needs to be...

They're just trying to get the audio
so it can be posted.

BELLS TINKLE

You can interfere to a degree

but you can't...

..you can't preach
what people should do.

Yeah.

You can try and help,
but you can't...

You know, there's so much of...

You know, stuff's been there
for generations.

You can't stop it.

It's a culture.

It's a culture. It's a way of life.

And maybe eventually, you know,
you get to a stage where...

Sh. Sh. Sh.

There's two shots, yeah?
Three.

GUNSHOT RINGS OUT
BOTH: Four, five.

There were five shots. Yeah.

And here we are, just carrying on,
drinking tea.

GUNSHOT
Six. Seven.

GUNSHOT

Eight, Nine.

TRANSLATION:

GUNSHOT

OK.

1-9-9-5.

How many shots was it in the end?
About 15?

About... Yeah, more than ten.

Yeah, it was more
than ten, definitely.

And was it, was it like, "bang,
bang" and then it was like

someone fighting with someone
or was it one gun?

At one stage, I thought it was...

There was one...

One shot sounded different.

Can I do anything to help and look?
No.

You're done? Yeah.

CLICKING

Be careful. Yeah.

Oh.

This is the worst bit now, when you
know they're out there patrolling,

it's horrible.

Oh!

And I don't bite my nails yet.

I might have to start.

Oh.

GUNSHOTS

This is the story of the tragedy,
violence, vandalism and theft

happening to a
fourth-generation Kenyan family

trying to protect their farm,
staff and cattle

from armed tribal gunmen.

We could see about 300 head
of cattle, sheep and goats

moving into the garden
of my brother's house

that, over the last few days,

has been vandalised and looted
and the staff houses burnt

to the ground.

More shock as, looking
through binoculars,

we could see donkeys being loaded
with stuff from the house

by Samburu women.

Armed men could be seen
walking around openly

with their illegal firearms,

and others seen throwing
stuff from the house into the dam.

GUNSHOT

This is not just happening
to the big farms.

The small-scale subsistence farmers
are having a very tough time, too.

Their crops are being invaded,
their livestock stolen.

It is not a small, little problem
that will quietly disappear.

This is a big issue.

TV: 300 heads of cattle belonging
to pastoral communities

who have invaded Laikipia County
on Wednesday,

allegedly killed by police

in a harsh exchange
of fire between them

and the pastoralists.

I think it was a Sunday night.

There was a hell of a lot of
shooting here,

which we could see, through the
binoculars, from our house.

They'd obviously...

Some huge rock had been

thrown through the door
to smash it.

Yeah, it was just...

It's funny how...

..all the memories come back.

The police unit coming
in with their boots

and the crunch and the crackle -

and one thing that the visuals have
triggered the memory was the smell.

Pastoralists have no need
for possessions, you know,

because their life is their cattle.

And they walk along with
their cattle,

and they have their red blankets
and they have a spear, you know.

They don't have a spear nowadays,
they have an AK-47,

but that's their life.

You know, what the
hell are possessions?

Why do we aspire to
all these possessions?

But because they know
it's...it's our Achilles,

it means so much to us.

Smashing it has a point.

It's intimidating. It's, um...

Basically says,
"Get out, we don't want you here."

Day 13 in a row of
violence and mayhem,

but a very long road
already travelled.

It's very tiring and depressing

to watch how,
over the last few months,

the work of my grandfather,
my father, my brothers and I,

and our children,
slowly, or not so slowly,

deteriorating back to the beginning.

Every day, we hear shots.

Then my son went up to lock up the
cattle and check on things,

and as he got home, at 7:30pm,

he was shot at in the garden
while walking down to the house.

He is extremely, extremely lucky...

..not to have been hit.

Let's see what happens today,
Sunday.

I would love to be able to believe
that this is just a drought

and pastoralists are
desperate for grass,

but that is not what this is.

It is far more sinister

and the government seems unable,
or unwilling, to stop it.

CATTLE MOO

How are things?

Well, OK, because I just spoke
to Major Rotich earlier today

and they've had a patrol
over here today

so I just thought I'd call
you to get a sense

of what might be in the offing here.

What's happened here
over the last couple of days,

you know, a lot of warnings
have been going out about,

including for myself, about to me
sounds like, "Get on, move on."

You know, "You're going
to end up in a mess."

And so today we had a mass exodus

of anything that was really
living in the place and...

And not a cow in sight?

Huh,

huh.

OK.

And what the army guy said
is that if they find any cattle

inside here in the next couple
of days and they come back,

then they will shoot them,
so am I to believe them?

They do just shoot the cows.

OK.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right, right.

Right.

Hello?

Are you there? OK, I lost you.

We could all just...

RAPID-FIRE GUNSHOTS

Oh!

Wah!

Wah! Wah! Wah!

Yeah.

THUNDER CLAPS

RAINFALL

LOUD THUNDER CLAPS

BIRDS SING

Former Laikipia North Member
of Parliament Mathew Lempurkel

has been sentenced to one year
in prison for assaulting

his successor, Sarah Korere.

Lempurkel is guilty of
slapping and kicking Korere

at Harambee House, Nairobi
during a meeting to discuss

the security situation in Laikipia.

MUSIC PLAYS

CHEERING

ALL: Oh!

CHILD SHOUTS

It's split.

Yeah.

That's.... That shows that it's
perfectly perfect.

Can you detect the rosemary
and the garlic and salt?

No? Really?

Yeah, but that's a very
difficult place to judge it.

That's very much a muscular flavour.

You can't taste... Delicious.

It's beautifully cooked, though.

Well done, Paps.

No, it's...

Family effort.

You should be giving
your mum some first.

Where's your...?
Where's your breeding, my friend?

Cheers, cheers, cheers.

I've got my diluted wine.

My grandfather, my grandmother,

they're both buried in Nakuru,

on my father's side.

"Kiberenge" means what?

It's somebody who's bad-tempered.

Bad-tempered or quick tempered.

Boils... Who boils very quickly.

They're very good at giving
nicknames to...

...to anybody, but particularly
mzungus that are very apt.

Like my father was called
"macho manne",

which means "four eyes"
because he wore glasses,

but it was also because he
had eyes in the back of his head.

He missed nothing and so they
called him "Four Eyes"

because they knew he never
missed a trick.

Yeah, they're very clever.
Very clever.

That's when your heart's going,

"Boom-biddy-boom-biddy boom."

Yeah, right?

Stop being stupid!
I'm not being stupid.

You are. I'm not. You are.

INDISTINCT CHAT

Oh, he saw it...
He found it, what...

I guess, seven, eight years ago...

I think it's quite nice
just being able to see

the real difference between the two.

Very sad to think that...

How close to extinction...

..that animal is, huh?

Yeah. The Grevy? Yeah.
I think what's interesting

is that not a lot of people
have heard of them. Right.

Most people say, like, zebra,
or zee-bra, it's just, that's it.

Yeah, there's only one. They don't
realise there are several... Yeah.

We'll drive up a little bit.

We've obviously fenced this area off

just to really control
cattle movements

and be able to manage better
the land within the fences

within the boundary
of the conservancy.

But we've joined the conservancy
next door, which...

There was a threat of it
actually ending up being an island

and totally separated
from any other conservancies around.

Private conservancies
where there is wildlife.

So we've now taken the fence down on
their side and connected our fences

with them, and opened up
a sort of 800-metre corridor

between the two conservancies.

A big fence all the way
around the two...? Exactly.

Basically, they're joined, yeah.

So there's 100,000 acres
of fenced conservation area,

which does have game corridors in it

to allow the movement
of wildlife in and out.

But you can control those, as far
as cattle movements control...

This is elephant tracks.

So elephant tracks
using the corridor.

Don't step on them.

If you come here, there's a good...

Walking this way.

Young adult.

Whoa!

Amazing, huh? Yeah.

So cool. He's dragging
his trunk along here...

WOMAN LAUGHS

Oh, Jogoo House. OK.

So what I want to do,
I want to encourage you to continue.

You can look up to me for support...

So you tell me... Yes.
And it doesn't...

It doesn't have to be detailed.
I will... I will make it detailed.

AUTOMATED VOICE:
Hold or call back later. Safaricom.

Hello. Hello.

MOOING

You know, we did a
small crop last year,

but the weather was not great.

And, yeah, we didn't lose money,

but we didn't make money.

So, this is... This is a huge...
a huge mountain to climb.

You know, for generations,

they've had this vast area,

to utilise for their range for
their cattle and sheep and goats.

As the population gets bigger,

everyone wants their own livestock.

So livestock numbers
start exploding,

the people numbers start exploding,

the land can't carry it.

And now everyone's so touchy

and there's a lot of anti...

..the white farmer or the...
the colonial way of doing it or...

But some of those things
are good principles.

But it's not something
I can go and tell a pastoralist.

At the end of the day, it's not...

It's definitely not a racial thing,

it's much more
politically instigated.

And that's hard to...

Hard to cope with, actually.

INDISTINCT CHAT

Well done. It's amazing.

It's a huge period of change,
I think,

good or bad,

you know, we don't know yet.

It's not a sort of Kenya problem
or...

But there's pressure
across the world for land,

for resources, for water, for...

You... You question yourself
a lot, you know...

"Are we stupid? Are we brave?
Are we stupid?"

Oh, you know, you get conflicting...

"Are you...?
What are you doing it for?

"Are you doing it
to keep your land?"

Um, yes. That...

That was the thing at the beginning.

But it gets tiring
and you have enough, you know?

And you... Yeah.

If you could run to the
Greek islands, you would.

Yeah. It's... It's not nice.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

INDISTINCT CHATTER

UNTRANSLATED SINGING