Let Nat Geo’s ‘Lion’ And ‘Africa Earth’s Wild Home’ Start Your Journey To Kenya

Atmosphere at National Geographic’s “LION” Los Angeles Red Carpet held at the California Science Center IMAX Theater on August 18, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Earl Gibson III/Deadline via Getty Images)

For a lion cub like Kio living in Kenya's Maasai Mara, life depends on decisions made far beyond his pride. Kio's survival may make compelling television, but protecting the landscape around him requires people whose livelihoods and knowledge are rooted in the protection of the land . In Kenya's Maasai Mara, families raise children, tend to cattle, and earn a living. Their livelihood, as well as the wildlife of the Mara, relies on a fine balance between human influence and conservation, Nature and enterprise. Those relationships give National Geographic's Lion and Africa Earth's Wild Homesignificance beyond their striking imagery—the two series approach wildlife differently. Lion follows Kio's coming of age, while Africa Earth's Wild Home examines the habitats that shape life across a continent. Both draw on African filmmakers, researchers, and field expertise to bring these accounts to life authentically.

For viewers, the adventure doesn't end when the credits roll. National Geographic Journeys with G Adventures offers trips through Kenya that combine personalized safari drives with opportunities to learn about conservation . They can also expect to experience local culture at markets and support local businesses like Cafe Ubuntu. Watching Lion and Africa Earth's Wild Home can become the start of a journey: first getting to know these landscapes on screen, then traveling to Kenya to explore them yourself and learn from the people who call them home.

Executive produced by The Lion King Director Jon Favreau and BBC Studios Natural History Unit's Mike Gunton, Lion follows a cub named Kio over four years. The four-part series is the first natural history production to document a lion's complete journey from vulnerable cub to king of a pride.

The series begins with Kio at 8 weeks old, born to his mother, Summer, a lioness whose fierce protection shapes his trajectory. The chapters of the series trace Kio's changing world. "A Prince Is Born" introduces the dangers surrounding the den. "A Band of Brothers" follows Kio's effort to establish his place among older males. "The Greatest Sacrifice" examines Summer's struggle to prepare her sons for independence. "To Be King" brings the brotherhood into territory where rival males stand between them and a new home. The crew logged nearly 1,400 filming days across 52 shoots and collected approximately 1,000 hours of footage to bring Kio's story to screens worldwide. Identification cards recorded details down to whisker spots; family trees helped the team follow relationships among as many as 50 lions among different prides. Series producer Jane Atkins split her time between the field and the edit, developing a narrative around events the filmmakers could not control.

O.J. Lynch, who played Mufasa in the stage musical, supplies its storyteller's voice. Hans Zimmer leads the score with Bleeding Fingers Music composers Niccolò Pacella and George Hutson Warren, while Lebo M. and Andrew Christie co-composed the theme alongside Zimmer. The Nairobi Chamber Chorus contributes vocals, and recordings from the Mara incorporate local singers, instruments, and lion roars. Rerecorded musical references to The Lion King connect a familiar cinematic world with the lives of actual animals.

Sophie Darlington (Director of Photography, Lion) Gavin Boyland (Showrunner, Africa Earth's Wild Home) and Faith Musembi ( Field Director/ Producer, Lion ) Stephanie Tharpe

Behind the production of Lion and Africa Earth's Wild Home are Lion director of photography Sophie Darlington, Kenyan producer and director Faith Musembi, and Africa Earth's Wild Home showrunner Gavin Boyland. Darlington moved from Ireland to Tanzania at 19 and later apprenticed with wildlife cinematographer Hugo van Lawick. Her credits include The Hunt, Dynasties, Our Planet and National Geographic's Queens. A BAFTA-winning cinematographer who joined the American Society of Cinematographers in 2025, she has also worked to expand opportunities for women and mentor emerging wildlife filmmakers.

Her work on Lion depended on a partnership with Kenyan specialist film driver Sammy Munene. His four decades of knowledge about lion behavior and the Mara helped position filming vehicles for intimate encounters. Heavy rain could make the plains impassable, and lions sometimes disappeared for weeks. Local field guides helped the crew locate animals concealed in bushes and long grass.

Kenyan drone filmmaker Anthony Njuguna trained on specialized equipment to capture aerial sequences and learned the lions by name. Conservationist and series researcher Alice Owen supplied knowledge of pride identities and dynamics. Their contributions show how the documentary's continuity relied on people able to interpret what was happening in the field.

Musembi directed and produced Lion's second chapter, "A Band of Brothers," and served as a consulting producer on Africa Earth's Wild Home. Her credits include Queens, Incredible Animal Journeys and Chasing the Rains. She is also the founder of the Nuru Film Institute, a training hub in the Maasai Mara designed to create pathways for African wildlife and conservation storytellers.

In a public reflection on Wildscreen Festival Kenya 2026, Musembi described the cost and visa barriers that can limit African filmmakers' participation in the industry. She expressed "a fiery belief in our own voices, our own stories and our ability to be the authors of our own future."

Her institute gives that ambition a practical direction. Training near the ecosystems being filmed can help African creators develop technical skills and professional networks, building careers within an industry that draws substantial value from their home continent.

Where Lion documents one lion's family, Africa Earth's Wild Home examines how different environments shape survival. Narrated and executive produced by Wunmi Mosaku, the seven-part series launches a multiyear franchise through a collaboration between National Geographic, the National Geographic Society, and Rolex.

Gavin Boyland, showrunner of Africa Earth's Wild Home, serves as creative lead of National Geographic's broader Earth's Wild Home franchise, with filmmaking credits including Animal Babies, Big Cats and Primates. His career has included working with Sigourney Weaver to film mountain gorillas, alongside developing major wildlife productions. As the former head of development at BBC Studios' Natural History Unit, he helped secure commissions including Blue Planet III, Big Cats 24/7 and Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age. On Africa Earth's Wild Home, that experience informs a continental story that culminates in African conservation leadership, including the work of Kenya's Nashulai Maasai Conservancy. His work leading this series connects large ecological stories with individual animals navigating their homes.

A lone hyena trying to catch flamingos at Soysambu Conservancy on Lake Elmenteita is one of the Kenyan encounters in Africa Earth's Wild Home. The series also visits Mzima Springs in Tsavo West, where hippos gather in pools fed by filtered spring water, and Laikipia, home to a rare melanistic leopard—the animal often called a black panther. Elsewhere, chimpanzees use tools to gather algae, and giant tortoises hunt birds. Filming these behaviors sometimes requires a camera where a person cannot go: underwater with the hippos, or on a remotely operated rig. Satellite images pull the view back, showing the terrain beyond the close-up.

Filmed across nearly 30 countries, the series required an extensive field operation. The production briefing records 2,086 filming days and more than 3,300 hours of footage. A Nairobi office and equipment store reduced the need to transport kit and supported local training. Opportunities and internships involved organizations including AFRISOS, NEWF and WildlifeDirect.

The finale features African contributors and projects led within the continent, including Kenya's Nashulai Maasai Conservancy. Its inclusion brings the series' idea of home into a landscape where wildlife, livestock and people remain closely connected.

TANZANIA – SEPTEMBER 30: A young Maasai pastoralist grazes his cattle September 30, 2003 outside the Ngornogoro Crater in Tanzania. Once, these nomadic herders could travel to the Serengeti or Crater areas when droughts came, but now they are forced to move to the small towns and accept food aid. The Maasai were thrown out of the Crater in 1972 in the name of conservation and are being threatened again with further land loss under a torrent of new legislation. Like other indigenous people the world over, they continue to be evicted from their land in the name of tourism and conservation. Though they were able to live in harmony with the wildlife for centuries, the places with rich water sources are now preserved for tourists, leaving the Maasai to struggle to survive on the borders of their ancestral lands, especially in the difficult drought years. Ecotourism, the government solution to chronic poverty, brings in vast revenues, but the dispossessed Maasai are not allowed to benefit. Only a handful, mostly foreign-owned tourist operators, profit, and only a tiny portion of the money actually filters through to the local economy. (Photo by Ami Vitale/Getty Images)

Maasai families need grazing land for their cattle in the same Mara landscape where lions like Kio hunt. At Nashulai, people continue to live and keep livestock within the conservancy. Founded in 2016 and owned and directed by Maasai, Nashulai takes its name from the idea of coexistence. Protecting wildlife here includes preserving Maasai culture and helping families earn a living from the land they share with it. Viewers encounter the conservancy in "Africa's Wild Future," the final episode of National Geographic's Africa Earth's Wild Home.

The conservancy links its land fragmentation to colonial-era policies and subsequent subdivision. Elders and community leaders gathered in an enkiguena, a traditional meeting held in a circle, to discuss restoration. The community removed 25 kilometers of fencing, reopening routes between the Maasai Mara National Reserve and neighboring conservancies. It returned to rotational grazing informed by traditional practice and ecological science and committed to ending retaliatory killing of predators that attacked livestock.

These decisions give cultural knowledge a direct role in conservation. Open corridors allow animals to move, and managed grazing helps maintain grasslands. Nashulai's livestock initiative uses hardy Boran cattle to support viable livelihoods with smaller herds. Its plans include Netii Apa, a Stories Café to preserve elders' oral histories and knowledge for future generations.

Nashulai's work also reaches beyond wildlife. It offers bursaries, improves access to water, and trains people for work in hospitality and conservation. For families living there, the conservancy's value also lies in support for education, water, and earning a living. This is one Maasai approach to caring for the land, shaped by the people who call it home.

The wider Mara conservancy model makes that relationship economic as well. Landowners enter agreements that generate lease payments for keeping land available for conservation. The Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association identifies those payments as a direct benefit guaranteed by the lease. Their value depends on reliable income and arrangements that communities can sustain.

Conflict prevention is equally practical. The Kenya Wildlife Trust's Mara Predator Conservation Program, which helped Lion's filmmakers understand pride dynamics and territories, also supports community meetings, anti-poisoning education, and reinforced livestock enclosures, or bomas. Keeping a herd safer can help prevent the loss of a lion to retaliation.

National Geographic Journeys safari vehicles observing lions

A lion that takes a family's cattle may be killed in retaliation. Keeping that animal alive means addressing the loss the family has suffered, alongside threats that extend far beyond any one herd. Shrinking habitat leaves lions with less room to hunt and fewer prey animals; the illegal trade in their body parts adds to the losses. According to the Lion Recovery Fund, only an estimated 20,000 to 24,000 lions remain—half as many as 25 years ago.

Established by the Wildlife Conservation Network in 2017, the fund supports protection of lions, their habitats and their prey. Its fact sheet reports more than $58 million invested to support 99 organizations across 26 countries. Supported work has removed more than 120,000 snares, saved 94 lions from snares, created nearly 7,000 jobs and reinforced more than 4,400 livestock corrals, according to the fund.

Disney's Protect the Pride campaign began with The Lion King in 2019, returned for Mufasa: The Lion King in 2024 and continues with Lion. National Geographic's August announcement reported more than $5 million in Disney investment in the fund since the campaign's launch. The shared ambition is to help double wild lion numbers by 2050.

The fund's Lionscape Coalition, established in 2019, also gives participating travel brands a way to support lion recovery and landscape restoration. It reflects a business reality underlying the safari industry: the wildlife that draws visitors needs long-term investment, including support for the people living alongside it.

Stephanie Tharpe on a Safari taking pictures off Elephants in Maasai Mara, Kenya

For viewers inspired to experience Kenya firsthand, National Geographic Journeys with G Adventures connects wildlife storytelling with travel. The collaboration between National Geographic Expeditions and G Adventures spans more than a decade and includes Journeys, Family Journeys and National Geographic Signature with G Adventures.

Journeys generally accommodate up to 16 travelers, with smaller groups on some itineraries, and combine an Expedition Leader's guidance with community encounters and upgraded accommodations. The eight-day Kenya Safari Experience links Nairobi, Lake Nakuru, Lake Naivasha and the Maasai Mara. Safari drives include a Kenya Wildlife Service conservation talk, offering an opportunity to understand the pressures behind the animals travelers hope to see.

G Adventures Expedition Leaders Rose Wanjiku, David Craig, and Joseph Kingori help bridge the gap between watching Kenya on screen and experiencing it in person. An Expedition Leader gives travelers someone to turn to when a wildlife sighting raises a question, or when they want to understand how people live alongside the animals they have come to see. Their local knowledge and storytelling help give those encounters context. For viewers inspired by Lion and Africa Earth's Wild Home, the learning can continue through conversations along the journey.

The itinerary also includes Café Ubuntu in Maai Mahiu, a Planeterra-supported enterprise that trains and employs local women and mothers of children with disabilities. Travelers can meet women working in its craft center and share a meal. A stop along the safari route becomes an encounter with an enterprise whose value includes livelihoods and family opportunity.

G Adventures' Ripple Score adds information about how travel spending reaches a destination. It measures the percentage of the company's in-destination operating expenditure paid to locally owned businesses and services, including accommodation, meals, and transport. Its work with nonprofit Planeterra supports community tourism projects around the world, while Trees for Days grows a tree for each day a traveler spends on a Journey. Purchases also help support the nonprofit National Geographic Society's exploration, research, and education.

The May media journey's inclusion of filmmakers offered additional insight into the productions. Public Journeys itineraries provide their own Expedition Leader and local expertise; the documentary team's participation belonged to that particular media experience.

The connection between these programs is strongest when the attention generated by a series encourages informed travel and support for local enterprise. In the Mara, a lion sighting takes place on land shaped by grazing decisions, ownership agreements and conservation work. Lion makes one animal's survival emotionally compelling. Africa Earth's Wild Homebrings the people protecting such lives into view. Exploring Kenya with that understanding gives travelers reason to recognize the expertise and livelihoods sustaining the landscape around the animals they came to see.

Lion premiered August 19, 2026, on National Geographic and began streaming August 20 on Disney+ and Hulu. Africa Earth's Wild Home premiered October 2, 2026, on National Geographic and began streaming October 3 on Disney+ and Hulu in the United States.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com