South African photographer Shem Compion remembers exactly when his love affair with the Great Rift Valley began.
In 2002, in his 20s and seeking adventure, Compion saved as much as he could, sold what he didn’t need and bought a Land Rover. He hit the road with a friend and headed north. They could not return home for seven months.
Their journey was Compion’s first exposure to the Rift Valley, also known as the East African Rift Valley. The rift valley carves a 4,000-mile path from Botswana and Mozambique in the south, through Djibouti and the Red Sea in the north, to Jordan. Formed by tectonic plates slowly tearing apart, the valley will grow little by little as it passes through 11 countries until one day, millions of years from now, the oceans will begin to flood the land. A clear and beautiful reminder of the impermanence of all things.
During a road trip, Compion ventured into Nakuru, Kenya. There, the land becomes lower and Lake Nakuru stretches out, home to a flock of giant pink flamingos, surrounded by distant mountains. “It was a very seminal moment,” he recalled. “That’s where everything came together for me.”
Compion, who is trained in conservation and wildlife management, has been running safaris along the Rift for more than 20 years, photographing its landscapes, wildlife and people. His portfolio is now assembled in his seventh book and first art book, The Rift: Scar of Africa, a grand project that seeks to capture its awe and richness.
The book is organized into five chapters that explore the geological origins of the Rift Valley, the evolution of hominids, today’s human inhabitants, biodiversity, and the impact of the Anthropocene (a period in which human activity has had a major impact on the planet).
Compion describes the book as “part celebration, part marriage of science and conservation.” He asked a variety of experts, including volcanologist David Pyle and anthropologist Veronica Waweru, to speak about his images, along with celebrities such as artist Gwatilo Mawyo and former Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn.
That being said, many of the photos speak for themselves and the brave photographers themselves.
In the opening chapter of the book, Compion wanted to photograph the lava pools of Tanzania’s Ol Doinho Lengai volcano at night. The guide said it “took some persuasion” to allow him to climb all day in 35-degree Celsius (95-degree Fahrenheit) heat to get there. Then, 10 minutes after reaching the top, a storm arrived.
“We had a little pup tent, and the four of us slept there, wedged together like sardines,” Compion recalled. “We lay there all night as the rain pounded the tent. When we woke up in the morning, the storm was still going on and we went down with our tails between our legs. I couldn’t take any pictures then.”
This failure led him to visit the Erta Are volcano in Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression. “They call (the area) the driest and hottest place on earth,” he said. “When we got there, it started raining.”
Compion said the nomadic Afar people who live in the area, known for its salt flat mining, can tolerate the heat, but rising humidity can stun even the Afar people. The photographer, carrying a sachet of hydration salts, was the closest to medical help for miles.
Compion has sought out the many people and tribes that live along the Rift and has built connections with the communities he visits, whether as a safari guide or simply as a photographer.
Ethiopia’s Omo Valley is one of the most diverse places inhabited by the Bodi, Suri, Karo and Kweg peoples.
“Tourism is unregulated in these areas, and unregulated tourism usually leads to bad behavior,” he said.
“I wanted to avoid that and go deeper into the Omo River,” Compion added. “We go there in small groups, so we can maintain control over our relationships with the tribal people we live with. We take that responsibility very seriously, because we want a beautiful return among everyone.”
Among his greatest influences are the Suri people (part of the Surma tribe), famous for their lip discs and brass bracelets.
Compion said he learned that schoolchildren were being taught in Ethiopia’s lingua franca, Amharic, rather than their mother tongue, which was affecting their education. So the photographer teamed up with SIL Ethiopia, a language development nonprofit, to raise funds to train teachers to teach Suri. The program already helps 500 students each year.
“This is a small project in the grand scheme of things, but it helps build great relationships,” Compion said. “I’m going there three times in 2026… I can’t wait, because they (people) are my friends now.”
He also became friends with conservationists, including the late Mark Stalmans, who restored Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park from a hunting ground devastated by years of civil war into a biodiversity hotspot.
Compion recalls Stalmans as a scientist with a “laser-like” focus, whether caring for his students or the entire national park. “For 20 years he has had Gorongosa under his belt. His passion is matched only by his incredibly detailed knowledge of every subject of Gorongosa’s magnificent ecosystem.”
The 4,000 square kilometer (1,544 square mile) park has seen an explosion in numbers of herbivores, particularly antelopes, in recent years, providing abundant food for predators such as lions, whose populations are recovering in Gorongosa’s forests and grasslands. This is just one of the highlights of Compion’s conservation efforts along the lift.
The Rift Valley is also undergoing urbanization. Although Nairobi and Addis Ababa lie directly on their border and are the most obvious symbols of modernization, Compion’s book is full of signs of development. Some are impressive but gentle. For example, a wind farm on a hillside. Others, like the fisherman pulling in his net at dusk, point out the problems posed by the Anthropocene more subtly.
Along with desertification, Compion says food security, especially declining fish stocks in major lakes, is the Rift Valley’s biggest concern. But he has enough experience to remain optimistic.
“There is a growing momentum across Africa that local knowledge, indigenous leadership and regenerative practices are the way forward,” he explained.
One example he witnessed is a small agricultural change near Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. Rice terrace farmers use root systems to prevent soil erosion, keep more trees in place, and increase yields. This change will help transition subsistence farmers into cash crop growers, he said.
“We are making breakthroughs in people’s lives and the environment while using traditional indigenous labor methods,” Compion added.
The continued search for harmony between all the rift’s inhabitants is a tenet of Compeon’s books. He knows what is possible, but he also knows what can be lost.
“I don’t necessarily see wildlife, landscape, and humanity as separate realms, but as a single system of interwoven cause and effect,” he explains. “The Rift Valley has extraordinary ecological interconnections, because human choices ripple through ecosystems, and those ecosystems define human potential.”
“Africa has been a great teacher in the sense that coexistence can be very sustainable if you invest time and empathy in solutions,” he added.
Even though his latest book is a very long-term project, Compion knew it would be impossible to cover the entire valley. He believes there is still much to discover about this place, which he describes as a beautiful “paradox.” Geological features tear continents apart and at the same time unite so many people. And he’s not done exploring yet.
“The more you become curious and the more you dig, the more discoveries you will make and the more treasures you will unearth,” he said.
The Rift: Scar of Africa is published by HPH Publishing and is available now.
