Galle Literary Festival

Photo Credits : Frank Pope

Saba Douglas-Hamilton

Filmmaker

Saba Douglas-Hamilton is an award-winning wildlife filmmaker and conservationist from Kenya. She has hosted popular BBC series including This Wild Life, Secret Life of Elephants, Big Cat Diary, Big Bear Diary and Unknown Africa. The daughter of zoologists who pioneered the first study of wild African elephant society, Saba was “baptised by the breath of an elephant” as a babe-in-arms and grew up seeing them as part of the extended family. Her teenage years were consumed by the family’s fight against the illegal ivory trade, which forged her zeal for conservation. A cultural anthropologist by training, Saba now works at the interface of endangered species, conservation-led tourism, and development in north Kenya with nomadic pastoralists who are crucial stewards of wild ecosystems but whose cultures are equally under threat. An ambassador for leading research and conservation organisation Save the Elephants, and chair of the Future For Nature Award committee, Saba is a passionate advocate for the natural world, with a particular passion for scorpions.

Sessions