Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
In 2009, a holiday in Kenya brought actress Kristin Davis into an unexpected encounter with an abandoned elephant calf. In July 2011, she returned with her friend Ame and filmmaker Roz Edwards, spending time at the Nairobi Nursery before travelling to Ithumba in Tsavo East. The Perfect World Foundation Award says that in 2014, she executive produced and financed Gardeners of Eden, a documentary about the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and its efforts to protect elephants. The film received recognition at several film festivals, including the Elephant Hero Award at the UN-sponsored International Elephant Film Festival in 2016, and was later a finalist for a Peabody Award. In September 2023, Davis received The Perfect World Foundation Award for her contribution to raising awareness around wildlife and biodiversity conservation.
Davis has supported the project and said she wanted to help raise awareness and funds for conservation work. Davis and staff from Kampi Ya Kanzi came across the young elephant on its own While staying in the Chyulu Hills. When the calf was still without its mother several days later, a decision was made to intervene. The orphan, later named Chaimu, was about a year old and was taken into the care of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, now known as the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Sixteen years on, Chaimu has become part of a very different story. After years of rehabilitation and time learning alongside wild elephants, she has returned to the wild. The encounter did not become an isolated episode in Davis’s life. She continued supporting the organisation and used her public profile to draw attention to its work with orphaned elephants and wider conservation issues. Her involvement included visits to Kenya. During that visit, she stayed at Ithumba Camp, which had been established alongside the reintegration centre and was intended to support limited responsible tourism in the northern part of Tsavo East. Davis also spoke publicly about Chaimu and the charity’s work, including an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She has continued to identify elephant conservation and the illegal ivory trade among the issues she has highlighted. Her interest in conservation has also crossed into film. Years after the original rescue, Chaimu’s story became connected to The Great Elephant Migration, a conservation art project involving a travelling collection of elephant sculptures.
