(soft mysterious music) ♪ (Shane) African elephants are among the woolly mammoth’s closest living relatives.

And a big reason why they’re endangered is that they’re not so easy to live with.

Just ask folks in Kenya who have them as neighbors.

David Mwiti has been farming on the edge of Kenya’s Lewa Wildlife Conservancy for 30 years.

(hip-hop music) ♪ Most of his neighbors rely on their farms to make a living.

So, when elephants raid their fields, the results can be devastating.

Whoa.

And hungry elephants aren’t just destructive, they’re dangerous.

-Okay.

-Yeah.

(Shane) But everything’s different now.

(serene music) Okay.

This electrified fence keeps most elephants out of the village and out of harm’s way.

Nearby, an elephant underpass prevents deadly vehicle collisions on the highway.

These huge infrastructure investments are part of a bigger strategy to make human-elephant coexistence possible.

(hip-hop music) ♪ Meet John Pameri, head of general security at Lewa Conservancy.

The way John takes care of himself, you’d never know he’s been working here for 30 years.

♪ As human and elephant populations have grown, managing conflict between the two has gotten more demanding.

Some elephants cause more problems than others.

(elephant trumpeting) GPS collars allow the team to monitor the habitual troublemakers 24/7.

Yeah.

(calm music) (speaking foreign language) That monitoring effort is just one part of a comprehensive security operation that John oversees.

(phone beeping) When the call comes in, a human-wildlife conflict team deploys to defuse the situation before it escalates.

The ops room can also rapidly mobilize anti-poaching units.

But Lewa’s strategy isn’t just reactive, it’s proactive, too.

The Conservancy has spent decades building goodwill with the surrounding communities-- digging wells, constructing schools, and creating good, reliable jobs, all funded by conservation.

It’s been really successful, but also hugely expensive.

If the elephants were gone, do you think farmers, like, would they be upset about it?

Would they be happy about it?

It all makes me think again about mammoths.

(deeply percussive music) If we brought them back, could we coexist with them?

Mmm.

Here in Kenya, people are keeping megafauna alive in a fast-changing world.

But it means doing things differently.