I was born in the Great Rift Valley Kenya over three decades ago, shortly after the long rains. When I was just six weeks old, my mother decided that I should meet my first wild animal, an elephant called Virgo. She was one of approximately 400 elephants that my zoologist father, Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, was studying in Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania, and what made Virgo special and different from other elephants was that she seemed to be as curious about us as we were about her. She had a single right tusk, and at 18 years old hadn’t yet learnt to be afraid. Being both inquisitive and rather friendly it wasn’t long before she became habituated and would walk over to greet us when we called her name.

				Although I was far too young to remember my first encounter, I’ve been told that when Virgo saw me she hovered her trunk over my body and took a good long sniff to get my scent. Then she brought her own calf forward, as if to introduce it to my mother. I’ve always had a very special place in my heart for Virgo, so in 2002 I went back to Manyara with a BBC film crew to try to find her. The film’s called “ Search for Virgo”.
		One year after I met Virgo, my little sister was born. She's called Dudu, which means "insect” in Kiswahili. Her star-sign is Scorpio which is appropriate, but it’s really because she was a tiny little bug as a baby. My name, Saba, means “seven”, and this was because I was born on the 7th June at 7 o’clock in the evening, and happened to be the 7th grandchild. Although my parents had other plans for a name, they were over-ruled by a host of Maasai women, so “7” I became and the name stuck.

Dudu and I ran wild in the African bush, climbing waterfalls, catching snakes and learning from our father how to creep up on elephants so they’d never know we were there. Kiswahili was the first language we spoke, followed by English, and we hardly ever wore clothes. At seven years old I went to school for the first time in Nairobi, Kenya. My favourite memory from that period was the day that lions came onto the rugby pitch and afternoon sports had to be cancelled. Much later, I was honoured to attend the United World College of the Atlantic, Wales, to do my International Baccalaureate (IB), and then the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, from which I graduated with a first class degree in Social Anthropology (MA).
				After University, my first job was with Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) in the hinterland of the Skeleton Coast, Namibia, on a “Crafts for Conservation” project. Whilst I worked to build up micro-projects with communities, my boss, Blythe Loutit, was monitoring and protecting the rare desert-adapted black rhino. She was an eco-warrior and a great inspiration.
A brief stint in Tanzania as academic director for a School for International Training (SIT) semester abroad programme, was followed by anthropological consulting on the coast for the National Museums of Kenya. Then in 1997 I joined my father’s charity Save the Elephants (STE) as his chief executive officer and we founded a research centre in Samburu National Reserve, north Kenya, one of the most beautiful wilderness areas I know. It was while working for STE that I was talent-spotted by the BBC, and my life as a wildlife filmmaker began.
I live in Kenya with my husband, Frank Pope, who’s just published his first book Dragon Sea. Whilst his life is all about the ocean, my great passion is the wilderness of Africa, her cultures, people and wildlife. I feel incredibly lucky to live here, and long may it last.