WEBVTT

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Ever since I can remember,

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African elephants have filled me
with a sense of complete awe.

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They are the largest land mammal
alive today on planet Earth,

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weighing up to seven tons,

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standing three and a half meters
tall at the shoulder.

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They can eat up to 400 kilos
of food in a day,

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and they disperse vital plant seeds
across thousands of kilometers

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during their 50-to-60-year life span.

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Central to their compassionate
and complex society are the matriarchs.

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These female, strong leaders
nurture the young

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and navigate their way
through the challenges of the African bush

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to find food, water and security.

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Their societies are so complex,

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we're yet to still fully tease apart

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how they communicate,
how they verbalize to each other,

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how their dialects work.

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And we don't really understand yet
how they navigate the landscape,

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remembering the safest places
to cross a river.

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I'm pretty sure that like me,

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most of you in this room
have a similar positive emotional response

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to these most magnificent of all animals.

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It's really hard not to have
watched a documentary,

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learned about their intelligence

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or, if you've been lucky,
to see them for yourselves

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on safari in the wild.

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But I wonder how many of you

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have been truly,
utterly terrified by them.

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I was lucky to be brought up
in Southern Africa

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by two teacher parents

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who had long holidays
but very short budgets.

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And so we used to take
our old Ford Cortina Estate,

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and with my sister, we'd pile in the back,

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take our tents and go camping
in the different game reserves

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in Southern Africa.

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It really was heaven for a young,
budding zoologist like myself.

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But I remember even at that young age

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that I found the tall electric fences
blocking off the game parks

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quite divisive.

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Sure, they were keeping elephants
out of the communities,

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but they also kept communities
out of their wild spaces.

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It really was quite a challenge to me
at that young age.

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It was only when I moved to Kenya
at the age of 14,

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when I got to connect to the vast,
wild open spaces of East Africa.

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And it is here now
that I feel truly, instinctively,

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really at home.

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I spent many, many happy years
studying elephant behavior in a tent,

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in Samburu National Reserve,

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under the guideship of professor
Fritz Vollrath and Iain Douglas-Hamilton,

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studying for my PhD and understanding
the complexities of elephant societies.

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But now, in my role as head
of the human-elephant coexistence program

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for Save the Elephants,

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we're seeing so much change
happening so fast

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that it's urged a change
in some of our research programs.

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No longer can we just sit
and understand elephant societies

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or study just how to stop the ivory trade,

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which is horrific and still ongoing.

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We're having to change
our resources more and more

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to look at this rising problem
of human-elephant conflict,

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as people and pachyderms compete
for space and resources.

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It was only as recently as the 1970s

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that we used to have 1.2 million elephants
roaming across Africa.

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Today, we're edging closer
to only having 400,000 left.

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And at the same time period,
the human population has quadrupled,

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and the land is being
fragmented at such a pace

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that it's really hard to keep up with.

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Too often, these migrating elephants
end up stuck inside communities,

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looking for food and water

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but ending up breaking open water tanks,

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breaking pipes

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and, of course, breaking
into food stores for food.

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It's really a huge challenge.

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Can you imagine the terror

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of an elephant literally
ripping the roof off your mud hut

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in the middle of the night

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and having to hold your children away

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as the trunk reaches in,
looking for food in the pitch dark?

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These elephants
also trample and eat crops,

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and this is traditionally eroding away

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that tolerance that people
used to have for elephants.

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And sadly, we're losing
these animals by the day

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and, in some countries, by the hour --

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to not only ivory poaching

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but this rapid rise
in human-elephant conflict

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as they compete for space and resources.

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It's a massive challenge.

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I mean, how do you keep
seven-ton pachyderms,

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that often come in groups of 10 or 12,

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out of these very small rural farms

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when you're dealing with people

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who are living
on the very edge of poverty?

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They don't have big budgets.

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How do you resolve this issue?

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Well, one issue is, you can just start
to build electric fences,

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and this is happening across Africa,

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we're seeing this more and more.

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But they are dividing up areas
and blocking corridors.

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And I'm telling you, these elephants
don't think much of it either,

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particularly if they're blocking
a really special water hole

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where they need water,

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or if there's a very attractive
female on the other side.

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It doesn't take long
to knock down one of these poles.

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And as soon as there's a gap in the fence,

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they go back, talk to their mates

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and suddenly they're all through,

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and now you have 12 elephants
on the community side of the fence.

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And now you're really in trouble.

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People keep trying to come up
with new designs for electric fences.

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Well, these elephants
don't think much of those either.

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(Laughter)

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So rather than having these hard-line,
straight, electric,

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really divisive migratory-blocking fences,

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there must be other ways
to look at this challenge.

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I'm much more interested in holistic
and natural methods

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to keep elephants and people
apart where necessary.

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Simply talking to people,

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talking to rural pastoralists
in northern Kenya

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who have so much knowledge about the bush,

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we discovered this story that they had
that elephants would not feed on trees

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that had wild beehives in them.

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Now this was an interesting story.

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As the elephants
were foraging on the tree,

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they would break branches
and perhaps break open a wild beehive.

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And those bees would fly out
of their natural nests

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and sting the elephants.

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Now if the elephants got stung,

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perhaps they would remember
that this tree was dangerous

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and they wouldn't come back
to that same site.

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It seems impossible that they could be
stung through their thick skin --

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elephant skin is around
two centimeters thick.

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But it seems that they sting them
around the watery areas,

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around the eyes, behind the ears,
in the mouth, up the trunk.

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You can imagine they would
remember that very quickly.

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And it's not really one sting
that they're scared of.

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African bees have a phenomenal ability:

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when they sting in one site,
they release a pheromone

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that triggers the rest of the bees
to come and sting the same site.

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So it's not one beesting
that they're scared of --

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it's perhaps thousands of beestings,

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coming to sting in the same area --
that they're afraid of.

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And of course, a good matriarch

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would always keep her young
away from such a threat.

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Young calves have much thinner skins,

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and it's potential
that they could be stung

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through their thinner skins.

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So for my PhD,
I had this unusual challenge

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of trying to work out

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how African elephants
and African bees would interact,

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when the theory was
that they wouldn't interact at all.

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How was I going to study this?

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Well, what I did was I took the sound
of disturbed African honey bees,

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and I played it back to elephants
resting under trees

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through a wireless speaker system,

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so I could understand how they would react
as if there were wild bees in the area.

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And it turns out that they react
quite dramatically

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to the sound of African wild bees.

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Here we are, playing the bee sounds
back to this amazing group of elephants.

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You can see the ears going up, going out,

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they're turning their heads
from side to side,

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one elephant is flicking her trunk
to try and smell.

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There's another elephant
that kicks one of calves on the ground

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to tell it to get up
as if there is a threat.

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And one elephant triggers a retreat,

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and soon the whole family of elephants
are running after her

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across the savannah in a cloud of dust.

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(Sound of bees buzzing)

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(Sound of bees ends)

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Now I've done this experiment
many, many times,

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and the elephants almost always flee.

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Not only do they run away,

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but they dust themselves
as they're running,

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as if to knock bees out of the air.

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And we placed infrasonic microphones
around the elephants

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as we did these experiments.

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And it turns out they're communicating
to each other in infrasonic rumbles

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to warn each other of the threat of bees

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and to stay away from the area.

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So these behavioral discoveries

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really helped us understand
how elephants would react

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should they hear or see bee sounds.

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This led me to invent a novel design
for a beehive fence,

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which we are now building around small,
one-to-two-acre farms

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on the most vulnerable
frontline areas of Africa

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where humans and elephants
are competing for space.

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These beehive fences
are very, very simple.

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We use 12 beehives and 12 dummy hives

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to protect one acre of farmland.

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Now a dummy hive
is simply a piece of plywood

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which we cut into squares, paint yellow

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and hang in between the hives.

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We're basically tricking the elephants

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into thinking there are more beehives
than there really are.

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And of course, it literally
halves the cost of the fence.

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So there's a hive and a dummy hive

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and a beehive and now dummy hive,

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every 10 meters
around the outside boundary.

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They're held up by posts

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with a shade roof to protect the bees,

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and they're interconnected
with a simple piece of plain wire,

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which goes all the way around,
connecting the hives.

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So if an elephant tries to enter the farm,

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he will avoid the beehive at all cost,

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but he might try and push through
between the hive and the dummy hive,

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causing all the beehives to swing
as the wire hits his chest.

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And as we know from our research work,

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this will cause the elephants
to flee and run away --

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and hopefully remember
not to come back to that risky area.

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The bees swarm out of the hive,

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and they really scare the elephants away.

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These beehive fences we're studying
using things like camera traps

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to help us understand
how elephants are responding

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to them at night time,

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which is when most
of the crop raiding occurs.

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And we found in our study farms

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that we're keeping
up to 80 percent of elephants

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outside of the boundaries of these farms.

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And the bees and the beehive fences
are also pollinating the fields.

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So we're having a great reduction
both in elephant crop raids

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and a boost in yield
through the pollination services

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that the bees are giving
to the crops themselves.

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The strength of the beehive fences
is really important --

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the colonies have to be very strong.

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So we're trying to help farmers
grow pollinator-friendly crops

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to boost their hives,

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boost the strength of their bees

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and, of course, produce
the most amazing honey.

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This honey is so valuable as an extra
livelihood income for the farmers.

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It's a healthy alternative to sugar,

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and in our community,

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it's a very valuable present
to give a mother-in-law,

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which makes it almost priceless.

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(Laughter)

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We now bottle up this honey,

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and we've called this wild beautiful honey
Elephant-Friendly Honey.

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It is a fun name,

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but it also attracts
attention to our project

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and helps people understand
what we're trying to do

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to save elephants.

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We're working now with so many women

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in over 60 human-elephant conflict sites

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in 19 countries in Africa and Asia

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to build these beehive fences,

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working very, very closely
with so many farmers

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but particularly now with women farmers,

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helping them to live better
in harmony with elephants.

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One of the things we're trying to do
is develop a toolbox of options

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to live in better harmony
with these massive pachyderms.

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One of those issues
is to try and get farmers,

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and women in particular,

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to think different
about what they're planting

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inside their farms as well.

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So we're looking at planting crops

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that elephants don't particularly
want to eat, like chillies,

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ginger, Moringa, sunflowers.

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And of course, the bees and the beehive
fences love these crops too,

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because they have beautiful flowers.

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One of these plants
is a spiky plant called sisal --

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you may know this here as jute.

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And this amazing plant
can be stripped down

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and turned into a weaving product.

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We're working with these amazing women now

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who live daily with
the challenges of elephants

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to use this plant to weave into baskets

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to provide an alternative income for them.

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We've just started construction
only three weeks ago

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on a women's enterprise center

00:12:20.259 --> 00:12:22.577
where we're going to be working
with these women

00:12:22.601 --> 00:12:24.117
not only as expert beekeepers

00:12:24.141 --> 00:12:25.799
but as amazing basket weavers;

00:12:25.823 --> 00:12:28.934
they're going to be processing
chili oils, sunflower oils,

00:12:28.958 --> 00:12:30.903
making lip balms and honey,

00:12:30.927 --> 00:12:34.171
and we're somewhere on our way
to helping these participating farmers

00:12:34.195 --> 00:12:38.592
live with better eco-generating projects
that live and work better

00:12:38.616 --> 00:12:40.456
with living with elephants.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:42.203
So whether it's matriarchs

00:12:42.227 --> 00:12:45.291
or mothers or researchers like myself,

00:12:45.315 --> 00:12:47.905
I do see more women
coming to the forefront now

00:12:47.929 --> 00:12:51.974
to think differently and more boldly
about the challenges that we face.

00:12:52.481 --> 00:12:54.037
With more innovation,

00:12:54.061 --> 00:12:57.505
and perhaps with some more empathy
towards each other,

00:12:57.529 --> 00:13:00.942
I do believe we can move
from a state of conflict with elephants

00:13:00.966 --> 00:13:02.913
to true coexistence.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:03.341 --> 00:13:04.500
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:04.524 --> 00:13:10.611
(Applause)