BOOKS & MUSIC

MEET THE AUTHOR

Don Pinnock is a respected South African author, photographer and investigative journalist. Along with Colin Bell, he compiled The Last Elephants, which features 42 chapters by some of Africa’s top experts, conservationists and other interested parties, alongside some exceptional photography. The book has been published worldwide and it’s already making a positive contribution towards elephant conservation.

You and Colin were inspired by the Great Elephant Census of 2016… Yes. We knew elephants were being poached in Africa, but the census gave us hard data of the horrific scale of the problem. From three to four million a century ago, there were only 350 000 savannah elephants left, and around 100 000 forest elephants. The poaching rate was around three killed an hour. At the rate they’re being killed, the death rate is exceeding the birth rate. We could see the end of wild elephants.

What was the response from contributors? We self-funded the book so we couldn’t afford to pay contributors. Would they be prepared to donate their time, words and images? We composed an e-mail, listed people