the barefoot conservationist

Saba Douglas-Hamilton

What is your definition of love?
For me, love is about breaking your own rules, embracing the moment, and trusting one another completely to be naked in body and soul.

Lucky seven
Saba, whose name means seven and was given to her by local African tribesmen, was born in Kenya at 7pm on 7 June 1970, the seventh grandchild of the family. Her father is respected zoologist Dr Iain Douglas-Hamilton, co-author of Among the Elephants and Battle for the Elephants with her mother, Oria (author of The Elephant Family Book).

Wild child
Growing up surrounded by elephants, Saba spent her early years running wild in the African bush. With her sister, Dudu, she would track elephants, climb waterfalls, catch snakes and scale the rooftops of the local farm buildings in the company of their adventurous wildlife expert father.

Saba went to school in the UK at the United World College of the Atlantic in Wales, and went on to obtain a Masters degree in Social Anthropology at St Andrews University. She wrote her thesis on 'Concepts of Love and Sexuality amongst the Bajuni People of Kiwaiyu Island, Kenya'.

Filming chimps
Her first job for the Natural History Unit was to spend several days living with a group of wild chimps, Going Ape, and taking nothing but the clothes on her back and a hammock. Along with Alastair Fothergill, Saba was utterly dependent on the chimps for finding food and water and it was a remarkable experience. Following this was a two-part documentary for the Wild strand, about the elephants which are so close to Saba's heart. She went back to revisit old haunts in Namibia for the filming of Namibia's Desert Giants.

Big cats
In 2002, Saba joined Simon King and Jonathan Scott to present Big Cat Diary and made several other programmes for the Natural History Unit, such as Escape the Elephant. In 2003, Saba returned with several new searches for some of the world's best loved animals, before revisiting the Mara's big cats for Big Cat Week in 2004. Inspired by the success of Big Cat Week, she worked on mini-series, Elephants of Samburu taking an intimate look at the daily lives of elephants in Kenya's northern frontier just after the rains.

Research and conservation
Saba continues to work with her sister, Dudu. In 2004 they produced Heart of a Lioness, revisiting the story of Kamunyak, The Miracle Lioness, a story about a lioness who adopted a baby oryx. She spent two years researching why an aberrant adoption like this might have come to pass.

Saba's passion for culture has led her from the reindeer herders of Lapland to the Bedouin and their camels in the Sinai desert. She has found the anthropological films to be some of her most rewarding work.

Committed to the conservation of Africa's wildlife and its indigenous peoples, Saba is passionate about her home country and the wonders it contains. She lives in Kenya and is a trustee of her father's charity, Save the Elephants.