Melanie Lamb – A Journey Fighting Wildlife Crime

I had an incredibly fortunate childhood, travelling to Africa for most of our summer holidays to satiate Dad’s unquenching thirst for the continent, waking up to the sound of hippos bellowing by the waterhole and go-away-birds chirping in the acacias. My sisters and I lived and breathed nature and wild places from our earliest years. I could not have asked for more.  

While in my early childhood I was enthralled by the spectacle of the animals in their natural habitats, as I got older, I began to realise the imminent threats that some of these incredible creatures were already starting to face. It was on a safari with Dad when I was about 15 that, for the first time, I witnessed the reality of poaching, when we came across the carcass of a dead elephant butchered with a machete for her tusks. As with my father when he first witnessed 255 dead zebras at a poisoned waterhole in Kenya, this was the moment I knew I had to follow in his footsteps in wildlife conservation and join the fight to protect his beloved jumbos.  

My father established David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) so that he could direct how the funds he raised were spent, rather than being added to a bottomless pit with no control. He dedicated his life to the many causes where he felt he could make a real and tangible difference. Up until his death in 2017, he was passionately interested in our long-term support of projects in Africa and Asia – especially in Zambia which he considered his second home. When he first visited in the 1960s, at the time of independence, there were over 100,000 elephants roaming this beautiful country, but in two decades, the illegal trade in ivory peaked and elephants were being slaughtered in their thousands. This attack on nature became known as ‘The Poaching Wars’.  

When I took over the reins of Dad’s Foundation in late 80s, we were able to carefully channel funds to support the brave men and women fighting this war against poaching. It was in early 2002 that a tiny baby elephant was rescued beside her dead mother and so began the story of Game Rangers International (GRI) – one of the most successful projects we have helped establish and continue to support today. One which Dad was especially proud. He was never happier than when he was walking with the orphans chatting to their keepers in the Kafue National Park and their families who participate so successfully in GRI’s outreach programmes. This is a privilege that I am lucky enough to continue to enjoy to this day.  

And of course, being David Shepherd, he was never happier than talking publicly, in his inimitable and very honest way, about conservation to volunteers and supporters at home and abroad. You might have been so lucky to have experienced this first hand, like so many of our supporters have done. 

He knew that without you none of this work would be possible. And for that, he was always hugely grateful and never shy in always asking for more! 

I am immensely proud that my own daughter, Georgina, affectionately known to many as ‘Peanut’, is now at the helm. Like me, Peanut has also been lucky enough to spend so much of her childhood in Africa, meeting the conservation heroes of our projects. If Dad could be with us now, I know he would be overjoyed and humbled to know that through his dedicated supporters like you, we are keeping his dream alive and following in his footsteps to continue DSWF’s vital work on the front line of conservation 40 years on.  

DSWF’s In the Footsteps of Giants appeal is a commemoration to Dad and his favourite animal, the elephant – their journey and ours, and the fight to end extinction. The elephant, so grand in stature and synonymous with Africa, that to imagine a future without them leaves me with absolute heartbreak. To have endured such significant poaching in just a few decades, where more than 500,000 elephants have perished because of human influence, is unacceptable.  

And while poaching is no longer the only threat, elephants now face additional human-induced challenges too. With so many huge crises hitting our iconic three – elephants, rhinos, and tigers – not least human encroachment, climate change and attempts to erode the hard work fought for ivory, rhino horn and tiger bone trade bans – our work is far from done.  

If we are to continue to save endangered species and truly support local communities, we need your help now more than ever for the next 40 years. So, as Dad would so often say, “we need your support now – tomorrow will be too late”.  

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