PROTECT THE GRASS, SAVE THE PEOPLE
(AND THE MONKEYS)

National Geographic, USA
2017, 2 min 16 sec

On and off for nearly half a millennium, rural enforcers have patrolled the perimeter of a 42-square-mile high savanna called the Menz-Guassa Community Conservation Area, or simply, Guassa. Admassu Getaneh, a hired gun and former soldier, is here to make sure that no one steals or ruins the grass. If you want to protect the world’s only grass-eating monkey, saving the grass is a good start. In Guassa, local villagers run the place. A complex communal system determines where livestock grazes, who cuts grass, and when. As a result this landscape one-sixth the size of Nairobi is among East Africa’s healthiest.