KAHUMBU
Paula

• 1. Conservation career
• 2. Public engagement

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.

Conservation career

After receiving her PhD, Kahumbu returned to the Kenya Wildlife Service and led the Kenyan delegation to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. In 2007, Kahumbu became the executive director of WildlifeDirect, a nonprofit organization co-founded in 2004 by her mentor Richard Leakey as an online platform to provide voice to African conservationists. The organization has since become the largest wildlife blogging site in Africa and has covered a diverse array of conservation issues—from protecting chimpanzees in Sierra Leone to African Painted Dogs in Zimbabwe. Those who are inspired by the blog posts can then donate directly to the conservationists on the ground, circumventing administrative fees.

The "Hands Off Our Elephants" campaign launched by Kahumbu at WildlifeDirect to put an end to the poaching of elephants and trafficking of ivory, and has since gained the support of Kenyan First Lady Margaret Kenyatta. The campaign aims to leverage media to drive behavior change and to foster agency within the local community to take action. In tandem, the campaign has worked to propose concrete legislation to enforce against the illegal ivory trade. When the campaign began in 2014, more than 100,000 elephants across the African continent had been killed for their ivory over three years.

Kahumbu also teaches conservation to students as a lecturer at Princeton University, where she leads an undergraduate course in community conservation during an annual field course in Kenya.

Public engagement

Kahumbu has reached the public through a variety of mediums to advocate for conservation—from television to editorials to museums. She is the producer of NTV Wild, an award-winning wildlife documentary series, and NTV Wild Talk, a television show hosted by Smriti Vidyarthi that covers conservation issues. She has also contributed regularly to The Guardian, advocating for protection of elephants through a solutions-based approach—from ending corruption to inspiring a young generation of conservationists—and denouncing the ivory trade. Kahumbu is also a chairperson for National Museums of Kenya.

Kahumbu is also an accomplished children's book writer, co-authoring global best sellers like Owen and Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship, based on the unlikely friendship of hippopotamus and an Aldabra giant tortoise Owen and Mzee.