Saving the world's ANIMALS

Jennifer Lonsdale talks about her life spent rescuing the beautiful planet on which we live

- SERENA SHORES

Of all the amazing animals Jennifer Lonsdale OBE campaigns to save, from elephants to tigers and even the gentle pangolin, it’s marine mammals – the creatures that first inspired her ambition to protect our endangered species – that have a special place in her heart.

‘One of my happiest memories is of being with my husband, Clive, and our three children off the coast of Jamaica,’ says Jennifer, who’s from Norfolk and is a founder and senior ocean campaigner for the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

‘We spotted nine sperm whales and, even though they had calves with them, they graciously let us follow slowly and quietly in our boat. It will stay with me forever.’

Jennifer, 69, grew up in Uganda and was regularly taken to national parks, where she saw rhinos, elephants and other magnificent animals.

‘At one time, we had hippos come into the garden at night,’ she laughs. ‘This made my mother particularly cross because they trampled her plants!’

In 1963, aged 11, Jennifer returned to England with her family. After finishing school, she began working as a nanny and cook for a diplomatic couple – a move that would take her to San Francisco in 1977, when she was in her 20s. There, she encountered the then-radical group Greenpeace.

‘I knew what was happening in the whaling industry and wanted to do something about it,’ she says. ‘I was soon volunteering with them, to help them stop the whaling fleets and protect their graceful, intelligent prey.’