It's been 40 years since the last pan-African elephant census and so we conservationists have been playing a bit of a guessing game as to how Africa's giants are really faring in terms of hard numbers.  Just how bad were the declines and where are the problems greatest?  

Names like Ngorongoro and Serengeti are world famous, and recently on a journey there with 9 lovely folks from Singapore, I got the chance to see why.  The northern part of Tanzania is part of the Greater Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, so if you've been to the Maasai Mara in Kenya, that's just over the border from where this safari took place.

Announcing my Botswana safari for 2017 is now available for you to join!  This is an exclusive safari for just 8 people with me, combining the World Heritage wetlands and wildlife fiesta of the Okavango Delta, the elephant-rich woodlands of the Khwai region and the Makgadigadi Pan among the San Bushmen.  It's 7 nights in one of the world's last great wildernesses and a safari not to be missed if you love animals and Africa at its wildest!

Today to commemorate World Elephant Day, here's a few of my favourite elephant photos in celebration of this amazing animal...  In about a week's time I'm going to be announcing my next safari in Africa - and it's in the home of the world's largest population of elephants.... Can you guess where it might be?

What have elephants got to do with football and martial arts?  Well more than you might think!

Thailand has long been a hot spot for the illegal ivory trade, which is why the Let Elephants Be Elephants team targeted this country for the next phase of our campaign.  We have seen some stronger measures in Thailand in the last year, including changes to the legislation around ivory and a public ivory stockpile destruction by the government, but there is still much to be done to raise awareness of the issue in Thailand.

Years ago when I first moved to Namibia to start my PhD on the black-faced impala at the age of about 21, a couple of Aussies and a German who were working there at the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia adopted me and helped me find my feet in this unique desert land where I didn't know a soul.  The war vet invasions had just started in Zimbabwe, and, well, if you've read my first book "Dry Water" you'll know the rest of the story!  Over a decade later, two of my early rescuers, fellow Aussie Dr Julian Fennessy and his wife, German Steph Fennessy, are living in Windhoek and raising their two kids in Namibia whilst also working on giraffe conservation across the continent.  Together Julian and Steph started and run the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, the world's first and only organisation dedicated to giraffe conservation in the wild.

There are some parts of Africa that remove you so completely from reality that you start to wonder whether all that stuff that fills your life with worries in the 'outside' world really matters much.  Serra Cafema Camp, in the Marienfluss Conservancy, is such a place, where traditional Himba people still live a life that is much like what it was several hundred years ago, where a river teeming with crocodiles slices through gothic mountains surrounded by sand dunes, where you can really find yourself by losing yourself in landscapes so primitive you can't help but feel humbled.  There's no phone range or wifi up here so you can leave all that behind.  And you know what - you probably won't miss it one bit.  It's all about disconnecting to reconnect, as Wilderness Safaris puts it.  This is the ultimate escape and a huge adventure.

How does one summarise a week in Namibia's rugged Kunene region, one of the wildest parts of Africa?  It was just one wow moment after another!  There was the cheetah mother with two cubs who killed a springbok male in the dry Hoanib River bed, the chameleon laying eggs at the Skeleton Coast, the drive through the dunes to the violent Atlantic Ocean where hundreds of seals frolicked in the crashing waves, meeting the traditional Himbas in Marienfluss Conservancy and of course, the desert lions (with cubs!) and desert-dwelling elephants....  And then there is those epic landscapes, so huge and awe-inspiring that you feel so small and incredibly humbled by it all.

It's been a while coming, but much goes on behind the scenes when it comes to developing awareness programs for species like elephants and rhinos in Asia.  Those of you who know me personally know that the awareness raising never stops when it comes to elephants and the ivory trade.  Last week, my conservation safari group of Singaporeans, British and Aussies talked at length about conservation and what still needs to be done while deep in the desert dunes of the Skeleton Coast, inspired by the arid-adapted wildlife of Namibia and those magnificent desert-dwelling elephants.  Next week I'll be in Brisbane talking to about 200 Queensland business women at the Australian Women in Leadership symposium about what we can learn from elephants about leadership (and of course, how we can help the elephants too).  Even though we've made good headway lately, we can't afford to lose momentum and we need you to keep spreading the word too.

My 2016 and 2017 safaris are filling up fast!  But it's not too late to grab a last minute place if you get in quick.

ZIMBABWE 2016 - ONLY ONE ROOM LEFT!