0:00:00.778,0:00:02.674
Ever since I can remember,

0:00:02.698,0:00:06.933
African elephants have filled me[br]with a sense of complete awe.

0:00:07.532,0:00:11.069
They are the largest land mammal[br]alive today on planet Earth,

0:00:11.093,0:00:13.252
weighing up to seven tons,

0:00:13.276,0:00:16.514
standing three and a half meters[br]tall at the shoulder.

0:00:16.538,0:00:19.982
They can eat up to 400 kilos[br]of food in a day,

0:00:20.006,0:00:24.545
and they disperse vital plant seeds[br]across thousands of kilometers

0:00:24.569,0:00:27.036
during their 50-to-60-year life span.

0:00:27.530,0:00:31.863
Central to their compassionate[br]and complex society are the matriarchs.

0:00:32.252,0:00:35.601
These female, strong leaders[br]nurture the young

0:00:35.625,0:00:38.688
and navigate their way[br]through the challenges of the African bush

0:00:38.712,0:00:40.912
to find food, water and security.

0:00:41.554,0:00:43.395
Their societies are so complex,

0:00:43.419,0:00:45.721
we're yet to still fully tease apart

0:00:45.745,0:00:48.332
how they communicate,[br]how they verbalize to each other,

0:00:48.356,0:00:49.982
how their dialects work.

0:00:50.006,0:00:54.077
And we don't really understand yet[br]how they navigate the landscape,

0:00:54.101,0:00:57.050
remembering the safest places[br]to cross a river.

0:00:57.728,0:00:59.486
I'm pretty sure that like me,

0:00:59.510,0:01:03.244
most of you in this room[br]have a similar positive emotional response

0:01:03.268,0:01:05.668
to these most magnificent of all animals.

0:01:06.117,0:01:08.537
It's really hard not to have[br]watched a documentary,

0:01:08.561,0:01:10.094
learned about their intelligence

0:01:10.118,0:01:12.744
or, if you've been lucky,[br]to see them for yourselves

0:01:12.768,0:01:14.402
on safari in the wild.

0:01:15.085,0:01:16.529
But I wonder how many of you

0:01:16.553,0:01:20.694
have been truly,[br]utterly terrified by them.

0:01:22.482,0:01:24.744
I was lucky to be brought up[br]in Southern Africa

0:01:24.768,0:01:26.236
by two teacher parents

0:01:26.260,0:01:29.315
who had long holidays[br]but very short budgets.

0:01:29.898,0:01:33.318
And so we used to take[br]our old Ford Cortina Estate,

0:01:33.342,0:01:35.374
and with my sister, we'd pile in the back,

0:01:35.398,0:01:38.215
take our tents and go camping[br]in the different game reserves

0:01:38.239,0:01:39.501
in Southern Africa.

0:01:39.525,0:01:42.977
It really was heaven for a young,[br]budding zoologist like myself.

0:01:43.398,0:01:45.747
But I remember even at that young age

0:01:45.771,0:01:49.429
that I found the tall electric fences[br]blocking off the game parks

0:01:49.453,0:01:50.712
quite divisive.

0:01:51.077,0:01:53.752
Sure, they were keeping elephants[br]out of the communities,

0:01:53.776,0:01:57.204
but they also kept communities[br]out of their wild spaces.

0:01:58.236,0:02:01.632
It really was quite a challenge to me[br]at that young age.

0:02:02.133,0:02:05.355
It was only when I moved to Kenya[br]at the age of 14,

0:02:05.379,0:02:10.101
when I got to connect to the vast,[br]wild open spaces of East Africa.

0:02:10.125,0:02:13.879
And it is here now[br]that I feel truly, instinctively,

0:02:13.903,0:02:15.188
really at home.

0:02:15.902,0:02:19.585
I spent many, many happy years[br]studying elephant behavior in a tent,

0:02:19.609,0:02:21.615
in Samburu National Reserve,

0:02:21.639,0:02:25.876
under the guideship of professor[br]Fritz Vollrath and Iain Douglas-Hamilton,

0:02:25.900,0:02:30.535
studying for my PhD and understanding[br]the complexities of elephant societies.

0:02:31.791,0:02:35.729
But now, in my role as head[br]of the human-elephant coexistence program

0:02:35.753,0:02:37.078
for Save the Elephants,

0:02:37.102,0:02:41.218
we're seeing so much change[br]happening so fast

0:02:41.242,0:02:45.440
that it's urged a change[br]in some of our research programs.

0:02:45.464,0:02:48.956
No longer can we just sit[br]and understand elephant societies

0:02:48.980,0:02:51.782
or study just how to stop the ivory trade,

0:02:51.806,0:02:54.244
which is horrific and still ongoing.

0:02:54.268,0:02:57.022
We're having to change[br]our resources more and more

0:02:57.046,0:03:01.188
to look at this rising problem[br]of human-elephant conflict,

0:03:01.212,0:03:04.791
as people and pachyderms compete[br]for space and resources.

0:03:05.536,0:03:07.585
It was only as recently as the 1970s

0:03:07.609,0:03:11.902
that we used to have 1.2 million elephants[br]roaming across Africa.

0:03:11.926,0:03:16.664
Today, we're edging closer[br]to only having 400,000 left.

0:03:17.093,0:03:21.363
And at the same time period,[br]the human population has quadrupled,

0:03:21.387,0:03:23.704
and the land is being[br]fragmented at such a pace

0:03:23.728,0:03:26.261
that it's really hard to keep up with.

0:03:26.673,0:03:30.355
Too often, these migrating elephants[br]end up stuck inside communities,

0:03:30.379,0:03:31.673
looking for food and water

0:03:31.697,0:03:34.252
but ending up breaking open water tanks,

0:03:34.276,0:03:35.433
breaking pipes

0:03:35.457,0:03:38.387
and, of course, breaking[br]into food stores for food.

0:03:38.411,0:03:40.344
It's really a huge challenge.

0:03:40.968,0:03:42.491
Can you imagine the terror

0:03:42.515,0:03:46.108
of an elephant literally[br]ripping the roof off your mud hut

0:03:46.132,0:03:47.428
in the middle of the night

0:03:47.452,0:03:49.516
and having to hold your children away

0:03:49.540,0:03:53.958
as the trunk reaches in,[br]looking for food in the pitch dark?

0:03:54.585,0:03:57.315
These elephants[br]also trample and eat crops,

0:03:57.339,0:03:59.605
and this is traditionally eroding away

0:03:59.629,0:04:02.561
that tolerance that people[br]used to have for elephants.

0:04:03.046,0:04:06.847
And sadly, we're losing[br]these animals by the day

0:04:06.871,0:04:09.855
and, in some countries, by the hour --

0:04:09.879,0:04:11.260
to not only ivory poaching

0:04:11.284,0:04:13.895
but this rapid rise[br]in human-elephant conflict

0:04:13.919,0:04:16.585
as they compete for space and resources.

0:04:16.950,0:04:18.156
It's a massive challenge.

0:04:18.180,0:04:21.141
I mean, how do you keep[br]seven-ton pachyderms,

0:04:21.165,0:04:23.242
that often come in groups of 10 or 12,

0:04:23.266,0:04:25.720
out of these very small rural farms

0:04:25.744,0:04:27.252
when you're dealing with people

0:04:27.276,0:04:30.371
who are living[br]on the very edge of poverty?

0:04:30.395,0:04:31.796
They don't have big budgets.

0:04:31.820,0:04:34.759
How do you resolve this issue?

0:04:35.157,0:04:38.760
Well, one issue is, you can just start[br]to build electric fences,

0:04:38.784,0:04:40.522
and this is happening across Africa,

0:04:40.546,0:04:42.156
we're seeing this more and more.

0:04:42.180,0:04:45.822
But they are dividing up areas[br]and blocking corridors.

0:04:45.846,0:04:49.251
And I'm telling you, these elephants[br]don't think much of it either,

0:04:49.275,0:04:52.164
particularly if they're blocking[br]a really special water hole

0:04:52.188,0:04:53.371
where they need water,

0:04:53.395,0:04:56.103
or if there's a very attractive[br]female on the other side.

0:04:56.127,0:04:58.658
It doesn't take long[br]to knock down one of these poles.

0:04:58.682,0:05:00.738
And as soon as there's a gap in the fence,

0:05:00.762,0:05:02.428
they go back, talk to their mates

0:05:02.452,0:05:04.335
and suddenly they're all through,

0:05:04.359,0:05:07.857
and now you have 12 elephants[br]on the community side of the fence.

0:05:07.881,0:05:10.032
And now you're really in trouble.

0:05:10.056,0:05:13.575
People keep trying to come up[br]with new designs for electric fences.

0:05:14.421,0:05:17.334
Well, these elephants[br]don't think much of those either.

0:05:17.761,0:05:20.710
(Laughter)

0:05:22.296,0:05:27.439
So rather than having these hard-line,[br]straight, electric,

0:05:27.463,0:05:31.124
really divisive migratory-blocking fences,

0:05:31.148,0:05:33.757
there must be other ways[br]to look at this challenge.

0:05:33.781,0:05:36.616
I'm much more interested in holistic[br]and natural methods

0:05:36.640,0:05:39.520
to keep elephants and people[br]apart where necessary.

0:05:40.180,0:05:41.823
Simply talking to people,

0:05:41.847,0:05:44.109
talking to rural pastoralists[br]in northern Kenya

0:05:44.133,0:05:46.680
who have so much knowledge about the bush,

0:05:46.704,0:05:50.680
we discovered this story that they had[br]that elephants would not feed on trees

0:05:50.704,0:05:52.570
that had wild beehives in them.

0:05:52.594,0:05:54.611
Now this was an interesting story.

0:05:54.635,0:05:56.643
As the elephants[br]were foraging on the tree,

0:05:56.667,0:06:00.270
they would break branches[br]and perhaps break open a wild beehive.

0:06:00.294,0:06:03.651
And those bees would fly out[br]of their natural nests

0:06:03.675,0:06:05.347
and sting the elephants.

0:06:05.371,0:06:06.958
Now if the elephants got stung,

0:06:06.982,0:06:09.625
perhaps they would remember[br]that this tree was dangerous

0:06:09.649,0:06:11.839
and they wouldn't come back[br]to that same site.

0:06:11.863,0:06:15.316
It seems impossible that they could be[br]stung through their thick skin --

0:06:15.340,0:06:17.706
elephant skin is around[br]two centimeters thick.

0:06:17.730,0:06:20.494
But it seems that they sting them[br]around the watery areas,

0:06:20.518,0:06:24.505
around the eyes, behind the ears,[br]in the mouth, up the trunk.

0:06:24.946,0:06:28.183
You can imagine they would[br]remember that very quickly.

0:06:28.207,0:06:31.073
And it's not really one sting[br]that they're scared of.

0:06:31.097,0:06:34.065
African bees have a phenomenal ability:

0:06:34.089,0:06:36.864
when they sting in one site,[br]they release a pheromone

0:06:36.888,0:06:40.103
that triggers the rest of the bees[br]to come and sting the same site.

0:06:40.127,0:06:42.458
So it's not one beesting[br]that they're scared of --

0:06:42.492,0:06:44.364
it's perhaps thousands of beestings,

0:06:44.388,0:06:47.493
coming to sting in the same area --[br]that they're afraid of.

0:06:47.961,0:06:49.596
And of course, a good matriarch

0:06:49.620,0:06:52.548
would always keep her young[br]away from such a threat.

0:06:52.572,0:06:54.509
Young calves have much thinner skins,

0:06:54.533,0:06:56.572
and it's potential[br]that they could be stung

0:06:56.596,0:06:58.463
through their thinner skins.

0:06:58.950,0:07:02.442
So for my PhD,[br]I had this unusual challenge

0:07:02.466,0:07:03.848
of trying to work out

0:07:03.872,0:07:07.819
how African elephants[br]and African bees would interact,

0:07:07.843,0:07:10.716
when the theory was[br]that they wouldn't interact at all.

0:07:10.740,0:07:12.772
How was I going to study this?

0:07:12.796,0:07:16.776
Well, what I did was I took the sound[br]of disturbed African honey bees,

0:07:16.800,0:07:20.220
and I played it back to elephants[br]resting under trees

0:07:20.244,0:07:21.939
through a wireless speaker system,

0:07:21.963,0:07:26.442
so I could understand how they would react[br]as if there were wild bees in the area.

0:07:26.466,0:07:29.553
And it turns out that they react[br]quite dramatically

0:07:29.577,0:07:31.844
to the sound of African wild bees.

0:07:32.990,0:07:36.617
Here we are, playing the bee sounds[br]back to this amazing group of elephants.

0:07:36.641,0:07:39.362
You can see the ears going up, going out,

0:07:39.386,0:07:41.839
they're turning their heads[br]from side to side,

0:07:41.863,0:07:44.601
one elephant is flicking her trunk[br]to try and smell.

0:07:45.050,0:07:48.082
There's another elephant[br]that kicks one of calves on the ground

0:07:48.106,0:07:50.765
to tell it to get up[br]as if there is a threat.

0:07:51.210,0:07:53.829
And one elephant triggers a retreat,

0:07:53.853,0:07:57.903
and soon the whole family of elephants[br]are running after her

0:07:57.927,0:08:01.126
across the savannah in a cloud of dust.

0:08:01.150,0:08:02.854
(Sound of bees buzzing)

0:08:08.394,0:08:09.679
(Sound of bees ends)

0:08:09.703,0:08:14.028
Now I've done this experiment[br]many, many times,

0:08:14.052,0:08:16.703
and the elephants almost always flee.

0:08:16.727,0:08:18.479
Not only do they run away,

0:08:18.503,0:08:20.590
but they dust themselves[br]as they're running,

0:08:20.614,0:08:22.947
as if to knock bees out of the air.

0:08:23.511,0:08:26.991
And we placed infrasonic microphones[br]around the elephants

0:08:27.015,0:08:28.768
as we did these experiments.

0:08:28.792,0:08:32.443
And it turns out they're communicating[br]to each other in infrasonic rumbles

0:08:32.467,0:08:34.403
to warn each other of the threat of bees

0:08:34.427,0:08:36.493
and to stay away from the area.

0:08:37.038,0:08:38.664
So these behavioral discoveries

0:08:38.688,0:08:41.188
really helped us understand[br]how elephants would react

0:08:41.212,0:08:43.561
should they hear or see bee sounds.

0:08:43.585,0:08:47.704
This led me to invent a novel design[br]for a beehive fence,

0:08:47.728,0:08:51.204
which we are now building around small,[br]one-to-two-acre farms

0:08:51.228,0:08:53.941
on the most vulnerable[br]frontline areas of Africa

0:08:53.965,0:08:56.609
where humans and elephants[br]are competing for space.

0:08:57.260,0:08:59.349
These beehive fences[br]are very, very simple.

0:08:59.373,0:09:02.625
We use 12 beehives and 12 dummy hives

0:09:02.649,0:09:05.045
to protect one acre of farmland.

0:09:05.069,0:09:07.363
Now a dummy hive[br]is simply a piece of plywood

0:09:07.387,0:09:09.625
which we cut into squares, paint yellow

0:09:09.649,0:09:11.307
and hang in between the hives.

0:09:11.331,0:09:13.276
We're basically tricking the elephants

0:09:13.300,0:09:16.125
into thinking there are more beehives[br]than there really are.

0:09:16.149,0:09:18.990
And of course, it literally[br]halves the cost of the fence.

0:09:19.014,0:09:20.671
So there's a hive and a dummy hive

0:09:20.695,0:09:22.442
and a beehive and now dummy hive,

0:09:22.466,0:09:24.942
every 10 meters[br]around the outside boundary.

0:09:24.966,0:09:26.601
They're held up by posts

0:09:26.625,0:09:28.745
with a shade roof to protect the bees,

0:09:28.769,0:09:31.921
and they're interconnected[br]with a simple piece of plain wire,

0:09:31.945,0:09:34.379
which goes all the way around,[br]connecting the hives.

0:09:34.403,0:09:36.859
So if an elephant tries to enter the farm,

0:09:36.883,0:09:38.729
he will avoid the beehive at all cost,

0:09:38.753,0:09:42.059
but he might try and push through[br]between the hive and the dummy hive,

0:09:42.083,0:09:45.423
causing all the beehives to swing[br]as the wire hits his chest.

0:09:45.447,0:09:47.408
And as we know from our research work,

0:09:47.432,0:09:50.347
this will cause the elephants[br]to flee and run away --

0:09:50.371,0:09:54.108
and hopefully remember[br]not to come back to that risky area.

0:09:54.132,0:09:55.863
The bees swarm out of the hive,

0:09:55.887,0:09:58.481
and they really scare the elephants away.

0:09:58.505,0:10:01.974
These beehive fences we're studying[br]using things like camera traps

0:10:01.998,0:10:04.355
to help us understand[br]how elephants are responding

0:10:04.379,0:10:05.584
to them at night time,

0:10:05.608,0:10:07.870
which is when most[br]of the crop raiding occurs.

0:10:07.894,0:10:10.218
And we found in our study farms

0:10:10.242,0:10:12.958
that we're keeping[br]up to 80 percent of elephants

0:10:12.982,0:10:15.466
outside of the boundaries of these farms.

0:10:15.966,0:10:20.720
And the bees and the beehive fences[br]are also pollinating the fields.

0:10:20.744,0:10:24.410
So we're having a great reduction[br]both in elephant crop raids

0:10:24.434,0:10:27.097
and a boost in yield[br]through the pollination services

0:10:27.121,0:10:29.791
that the bees are giving[br]to the crops themselves.

0:10:30.585,0:10:33.258
The strength of the beehive fences[br]is really important --

0:10:33.282,0:10:35.197
the colonies have to be very strong.

0:10:35.221,0:10:38.173
So we're trying to help farmers[br]grow pollinator-friendly crops

0:10:38.197,0:10:40.221
to boost their hives,

0:10:40.245,0:10:41.872
boost the strength of their bees

0:10:41.896,0:10:44.767
and, of course, produce[br]the most amazing honey.

0:10:44.791,0:10:48.926
This honey is so valuable as an extra[br]livelihood income for the farmers.

0:10:49.244,0:10:51.276
It's a healthy alternative to sugar,

0:10:51.300,0:10:53.014
and in our community,

0:10:53.038,0:10:55.553
it's a very valuable present[br]to give a mother-in-law,

0:10:55.577,0:10:57.465
which makes it almost priceless.

0:10:57.489,0:10:59.616
(Laughter)

0:10:59.942,0:11:01.607
We now bottle up this honey,

0:11:01.631,0:11:05.734
and we've called this wild beautiful honey[br]Elephant-Friendly Honey.

0:11:05.758,0:11:06.909
It is a fun name,

0:11:06.933,0:11:09.123
but it also attracts[br]attention to our project

0:11:09.147,0:11:11.552
and helps people understand[br]what we're trying to do

0:11:11.576,0:11:12.728
to save elephants.

0:11:12.752,0:11:14.498
We're working now with so many women

0:11:14.522,0:11:17.103
in over 60 human-elephant conflict sites

0:11:17.127,0:11:19.634
in 19 countries in Africa and Asia

0:11:19.658,0:11:21.688
to build these beehive fences,

0:11:21.712,0:11:24.138
working very, very closely[br]with so many farmers

0:11:24.162,0:11:26.442
but particularly now with women farmers,

0:11:26.466,0:11:29.592
helping them to live better[br]in harmony with elephants.

0:11:29.616,0:11:33.060
One of the things we're trying to do[br]is develop a toolbox of options

0:11:33.084,0:11:36.228
to live in better harmony[br]with these massive pachyderms.

0:11:36.252,0:11:38.403
One of those issues[br]is to try and get farmers,

0:11:38.427,0:11:39.649
and women in particular,

0:11:39.673,0:11:41.863
to think different[br]about what they're planting

0:11:41.887,0:11:43.188
inside their farms as well.

0:11:43.212,0:11:44.860
So we're looking at planting crops

0:11:44.884,0:11:47.764
that elephants don't particularly[br]want to eat, like chillies,

0:11:47.788,0:11:50.061
ginger, Moringa, sunflowers.

0:11:50.085,0:11:53.308
And of course, the bees and the beehive[br]fences love these crops too,

0:11:53.332,0:11:55.117
because they have beautiful flowers.

0:11:55.141,0:11:57.831
One of these plants[br]is a spiky plant called sisal --

0:11:57.855,0:11:59.728
you may know this here as jute.

0:12:00.075,0:12:02.591
And this amazing plant[br]can be stripped down

0:12:02.615,0:12:04.956
and turned into a weaving product.

0:12:04.980,0:12:07.052
We're working with these amazing women now

0:12:07.076,0:12:09.742
who live daily with[br]the challenges of elephants

0:12:09.766,0:12:12.735
to use this plant to weave into baskets

0:12:12.759,0:12:15.307
to provide an alternative income for them.

0:12:15.696,0:12:18.180
We've just started construction[br]only three weeks ago

0:12:18.204,0:12:20.235
on a women's enterprise center

0:12:20.259,0:12:22.577
where we're going to be working[br]with these women

0:12:22.601,0:12:24.117
not only as expert beekeepers

0:12:24.141,0:12:25.799
but as amazing basket weavers;

0:12:25.823,0:12:28.934
they're going to be processing[br]chili oils, sunflower oils,

0:12:28.958,0:12:30.903
making lip balms and honey,

0:12:30.927,0:12:34.171
and we're somewhere on our way[br]to helping these participating farmers

0:12:34.195,0:12:38.592
live with better eco-generating projects[br]that live and work better

0:12:38.616,0:12:40.456
with living with elephants.

0:12:40.480,0:12:42.203
So whether it's matriarchs

0:12:42.227,0:12:45.291
or mothers or researchers like myself,

0:12:45.315,0:12:47.905
I do see more women[br]coming to the forefront now

0:12:47.929,0:12:51.974
to think differently and more boldly[br]about the challenges that we face.

0:12:52.481,0:12:54.037
With more innovation,

0:12:54.061,0:12:57.505
and perhaps with some more empathy[br]towards each other,

0:12:57.529,0:13:00.942
I do believe we can move[br]from a state of conflict with elephants

0:13:00.966,0:13:02.913
to true coexistence.

0:13:03.341,0:13:04.500
Thank you.

0:13:04.524,0:13:10.611
(Applause)