Following the hugely popular BBC2 series – This Wild Life – UK travellers are keen to experience Saba Douglas-Hamilton's delightful family-run property in Samburu, Elephant Watch Camp.

Wildlife film-maker and conservationist, Saba, is keen to emphasise that Elephant Watch Camp expands 'eco-tourism' by engaging at a deeper level with the wildlife and landscape to offer 'conservation tourism'.

Situated in the dry north of Kenya, in a land of endless rugged beauty and untamed wilderness, the camp perches on the sandy banks of the Ewaso Nyiro River in Samburu National Reserve. This ecosystem has one of the largest elephant populations in Kenya, each one individually identified and studied by researchers at Save the Elephants, an NGO founded by Saba's father, a world renowned zoologist, Iain Douglas-Hamilton.

Saba's mother, Oria Douglas-Hamilton, has built the Elephant Watch portfolio from her love and passion for conservation and Africa's abundant wildlife. In 1928 Oria's parents, Mario Rocco and Giselle Bunau-Varilla, arrived from Italy and France to hunt elephants in what was then the Belgian Congo. When Giselle fell pregnant with their first child, the couple set off on foot from what is now Rwanda towards Lake Victoria with sixty porters shouldering their life's possessions. They ended their journey in Kenya, where they bought a farm on the northern shoreline of Lake Naivasha and had 3 children, Doriano, Mirella and Oria. The stories the family told on their return to Paris are said to have inspired Giselle's cousin, Jean de Brunhoff, to pen his famous children's books on Babar the Elephant.

Oria met Iain Douglas-Hamilton while he was in Tanzania studying elephants for his doctorate thesis at Oxford. During the 1970s Iain investigated the status of elephants throughout Africa and was the first to alert the world to the ivory poaching holocaust. He founded Save the Elephants in 1993 in order to create an effective and flexible NGO dedicated specifically to elephant conservation. Iain was awarded an OBE, a CBE, and two of the highest conservation prizes – The Order of the Golden Ark, and the Indianapolis Prize and Lilly Medal – for his conservation work.

Oria and Iain Douglas-Hamilton's daughters Saba and Mara, along with Saba's husband Frank Pope, are all assuming ever-greater roles within the organisations and ventures that they have established.

Elephant Watch Camp is closely connected with Save The Elephants, keeping up to date with all new births, matings, or changes in the elephant families of Samburu. The camps guides have been trained by Save the Elephants to recognise each of the 66 elephant families that are resident in Samburu, most of whom have recorded histories that date back to the foundation of STE's research in 1997. Guides are also part of the Lion Watch team, gathering data on big cats for Ewaso Lions, an NGO that strives to improve the relationship between pastoralists and predators.

The Elephant Watch team aim to lead by example to encourage ecological wisdom and sustainability as a way of life, and actively promote an anti-pollution lifestyle (recycling and reusing wherever possible), organic farming, and self-sufficiency in food, electricity and water. They use tourism and trade to promote wildlife conservation by providing jobs and sales outlets for the local communities, to educate nomadic children, and to train wildlife guides and chefs to the highest levels. Up to 90% of the camps workforce is local, mainly from the Samburu community.

Many Elephant Watch Camp guests have become passionate supporters of Save the Elephants, donors to the Elephant Crisis Fund, or have sponsored students to attend secondary school or University through the Elephant Watch Scholarship Fund.

For more information on the camp please contact hannah@kamilisafaris.com