REMEMBERING WILDLIFE

It was an early morning encounter with a young elephant in northern Kenya in 2014, which had been needlessly poached, that changed the life of Margot Raggett MBE - setting her on a path to combine her love of wildlife photography with conservation efforts to fight for the future of endangered animals.

- Girish Mallya

Margot says: "One morning, while staying at Laikipia Wilderness Camp, we came across a young elephant that had been poached. He had an arrow stuck in him, but he still had his tusks.

I was told poachers had shot him but he'd managed to run away and they hadn't been able to keep up with him, which means it took a few days for him to die.

"I was so incensed by what I saw that I started thinking about what I could do to turn that anger into something positive." She then spent several months persuading many of the world's best wildlife photographers to donate an image to a coffee-table book to raise awareness of the plight of elephants and to raise funds for conservation efforts to protect them.

She called the book Remembering Elephants - after hearing renowned conservationist Sir David Attenborough ask: "Are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?"

The book came out in 2016 and, at the time, Margot thought it would be one-off, but, inspired by its success, she continued with the project and has since produced a new book every year, each dedicated to a different endangered species.

After the first book came Remembering Rhinos, Remembering Great Apes, Remembering Lions, Remembering Cheetahs, Remembering African Wild Dogs, Remembering Bears and Remembering Leopards. The ninth book, Remembering Tigers, will launch in October.

It's quite a story, especially considering she 'fell' into wildlife photography.