Dr. Paula Kahumbu is one of Africa's most influential wildlife conservationists, ecologists, and media producers. Her career has been at the intersection of science, advocacy, and storytelling. Kahumbu's journey into conservation began as a young girl in Nairobi, where she would often bring lizards, snakes, and frogs to her neighbor, famed palaeoanthropologist Richard Leakey, for identification. This early curiosity sparked a career in ecology, wildlife advocacy, and conservation education.
Kahumbu's educational background includes studying ecology and biology at the University of Bristol, earning a master's degree at the University of Florida, and completing her PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University in 2002. Her connection with elephants deepened during her research in Kenya, where she was involved in examining over 2,000 confiscated elephant tusks. This experience exposed her to the scale of the ivory trade and helped shape her conservation work.
As the CEO of WildlifeDirect, a conservation organization founded by Richard Leakey, Kahumbu has been instrumental in leading anti-poaching campaigns and advocating for stronger enforcement of conservation laws. One of her most notable achievements was leading the "Hands Off Our Elephants" campaign, which pushed elephant poaching and ivory trafficking into Kenya's public conversation. The campaign was supported by former First Lady Margaret Kenyatta and resulted in a significant reduction in elephant poaching in Kenya.
The Whitley Fund for Nature credits a wider effort involving government and NGOs, in which Kahumbu played a key role, with helping reduce elephant poaching in Kenya by 80 percent over five years. Kahumbu's work has not gone unnoticed, as she has received numerous awards and honors for her conservation efforts. In 2014, she won the Whitley Award, and in 2021, she received the Whitley Gold Award, worth £100,000 in project funding.
Kahumbu has also made significant contributions to conservation storytelling, understanding that facts alone do not necessarily make people care. She became the force behind Wildlife Warriors, a wildlife documentary series made by Africans for African audiences, bringing conservationists and their work directly to television viewers. The first season aired in Kenya in 2019 and was later distributed across 26 African countries.
In addition to her work with WildlifeDirect, Kahumbu has taken her storytelling to a global audience as a presenter on National Geographic's Secrets of the Elephants. Her approach has remained central to her work, alongside conservation education and environmental justice. Kahumbu's international recognition has followed a career spent moving between research, advocacy, and storytelling.
Kahumbu's numerous awards and honors include being named Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year in 2021 and receiving Kenya's Order of the Grand Warrior for outstanding service. In 2022, she joined the National Geographic Society Board of Trustees as an Explorer Trustee and was named one of the Financial Times' 25 Most Influential Women of 2022. Her work was featured in the newly opened National Geographic Museum of Exploration in Washington, DC, in June 2026.
Key points
- Dr. Paula Kahumbu is a renowned Kenyan conservationist who has dedicated her career to protecting wildlife, particularly elephants, through science, advocacy, and storytelling.
- Kahumbu led the "Hands Off Our Elephants" campaign, which resulted in an 80 percent reduction in elephant poaching in Kenya over five years.
- Kahumbu has received numerous awards and honors for her conservation efforts, including the Whitley Award, Whitley Gold Award, and Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year.
