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Dec 16, 2010

"Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around." --Henry David Thoreau

Restoring Paradise for Gentle Giants

When Iain Douglas-Hamilton left Tanzania, in East Africa, in 1970 to study at Oxford University in Britain, he left behind "an elephants' paradise". But when he returned in 1972, the country's national parks looked more like a war zone: ivory poaching had endangered these gentle giants. With elephants on the brink of extinction, the soft-spoken conservationist and author knew he had to act. In his efforts, Douglas-Hamilton has dodged bullets and survived plane crashes, droughts, floods, malaria, and even once, being squashed by a rhinoceros! He now lives in Kenya with his wife, Oria, and is the 2010 recipient of the Indianapolis Prize, the world's leading award for animal conservation.