Saba warns of elephant 'holocaust'

"It's such a pleasant, relaxing experience – in Kenya you are never far away from instant death on the roads from potholes, animals or other drivers," she laughs.

The elephant conservationist and TV presenter stopped off in Bewdley to meet its small elephant family during a UK-wide tour promoting her work with elephants in Africa.

With her husband Frank Pope, she runs the Save The Elephants(STE) charity, started by her zoologist father Ian Douglas-Hamilton in 1993. She was born in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya on June 7 at 7pm on the seventh day of the week, and became the seventh grandchild in the family. Her name means 'seven' in Swahili.

She met her first wild animal, an elephant called Virgo, when she was six weeks old and with her sister, Mara, grew up in the African bush learning bush-lore from the rangers and absorbing all there was to know about elephants, just like her own three children now.

Her first job after leaving St Andrews University in Scotland with a Masters degree in social anthropology was with the Save the Rhino Trust in Namibia and she went on to work in academia before joining STE as chief operations officer.

It was here she was talent-spotted by the BBC and has since presented several wildlife series, including Secret Life of Elephants, Unknown Africa and Big Cat Diary.

She currently runs the family’s luxury tented eco-lodge, Elephant Watch Camp, started by her mother Oria, a pioneer in conservation tourism, which offers holidaymakers the chance to live under canvas observing wildlife at close range.

In between times, she lectures extensively to raise awareness about conservation issues. Her message is simple: elephants are in crisis.

She identifies two elephant 'holocausts'. During the first, in the 1970s – 80s, the African elephant population plummeted by half, from 1.3 million to 600,000 in a decade due to the illegal ivory trade .

After a long global campaign, when STE teamed up with CITES(the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), a ban on international ivory trade was brought in and had an immediate effect.

"Almost overnight the price of ivory dropped, except for places like the Congo, and a 25-year ceasefire allowed elephants to recover," says Saba.

"But the South African countries - Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia - were pushing to re-open trade as they felt they were being punished for their good custodianship of their elephant populations."

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