Paula Kahumbu

Paula Kahumbu is a wildlife conservationist and chief executive officer of WildlifeDirect. She is best known as a campaigner for elephants and wildlife, spearheading the Hands Off Our Elephants Campaign, which was launched in 2014 with Kenyan First Lady Margaret Kenyatta. She has recently in 2022 been appointed as the first National Geographical Explorer as a board of Trustees member at the National Geographic Society.

Paula Kahumbu in 2017

Quotes

• My job is to just bring sanity to the protection of our natural heritage .
• My purpose is not just to be a scientist, my purpose is really to do conservation through education, through innovation, through storytelling. As a conservation scientist, you’re only producing scientific articles that are only read by other scientists. But when you are on National Geographic or Disney that inspires people, educates them to care about nature.
  • "Meet a champion of Kenyan wildlife protection", The Financial Times (March 10, 2023)
• “What we know about elephants today is incredible,”,“They are like people.”[1]
• “If we’re going to do conservation in Africa, we have to be audacious,”, “We’ve got to be courageous and we’ve got to think big.”[2]