CONSERVATIONIST Charlie Mayhew would probably have ended up working in the insurance industry but for a visit to Africa that changed the entire course of his life.

Now as CEO of Tusk Trust, the Briton is devoted to protecting the wildlife of Africa.

He visited Shanghai recently accompanying Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, who is the royal patron of Tusk.

“Conservation is not only about animals. Ultimately, I believe it’s about humans,” says Mayhew.

After leaving Wellington College independent school, Mayhew spent two “gap” years in South Africa where he found a job selling pens.

While there, he visited reserves and for the first time got up close to some of the continent’s wildlife, but later he realized that he’d only seen a small part of Africa’s natural wonders.

“South Africa was different from the rest of Africa. It was very developed and I wanted to see the other part,” says Mayhew.

He returned to the UK, but Africa seemed to keep beckoning him back.

Eventually in 1984, Mayhew persuaded a friend to sponsor him on an expedition. After 18 months’ preparation, the team, supported personally by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, finally departed from London. This expedition proved to be a life-changing experience for Mayhew. “After that expedition, I decided to try to do a little bit to help,” he says.

Tusk was founded not long after.

Now the organization has around 50 projects in Africa and its work has been acknowledged by the British royal family. Before Prince William, Prince Philip and Prince Charles were royal patrons for the organization.

Mayhew has also received national recognition. In 2005, he received a Member of the British Empire (MBE) award from the Queen in recognition of his work with Tusk.

Currently, the NGO is making strenuous efforts to reduce poaching and the trade in wildlife.

“The illegal wildlife trade is now worth US$20 billion a year, which makes it the fourth-largest criminal activity in the world, behind drugs, human trafficking and arms,” he explains.

Mayhew says poaching is exploited by very specific international criminal networks, and that terrorist organizations benefit from the trade.

In Africa, people are losing so much wildlife through the trade, which is disaster to natural heritage and resources, he adds.

“We have realized that the poaching is a worldwide problem,” says Mayhew. “While we take action to protect animals in Africa, we also need to tackle the demand by consumers for the products. When buying stops, the killing can too — which is absolutely true.”

Mayhew says he visits Africa three or four times a year and what he has seen of poaching has left him shocked.

“Nowadays, in order to save bullets, the poachers make sure they shoot only one bullet into a rhino and don’t kill it,” he says.

When the rhino is wounded, the poachers take an axe to break its back.

“Sometimes the animal is still alive when they cut its face off, just for the horn,” he says. “And sometimes they leave the animal alive, with the horn cut off. When you see the images, it’s so horrific that it makes you feel ashamed to be a human being.”

Mayhew believes that China can play a significant role in global collaboration to stop poaching.

When Prince William met President Xi Jinping in Beijing on March 2, he expressed the same idea, hoping that China and the UK can make joint efforts on nature and wildlife conservation.

After visiting Shanghai, Prince William and Mayhew went to southwest China’s Yunnan Province as the last stop of his visit to China. There they visited the Elephant Valley, a reserve in Xishuangbanna where 50 baby elephants are being raised.

“It strikes me that coming to see China’s last remnant population of elephant is highly symbolic,” Mayhew wrote for the Guardian newspaper after the visit.

“The irony is that in a country where demand for ivory is pushing Africa’s elephants to the brink, here in Yunnan the State Forestry Administration is proud of their efforts to protect and slowly increase the population again.”

As well as efforts to halt poaching, Tusk also believes that it is important to plant the seed of loving nature in young hearts.

While visiting Shanghai, Mayhew promoted a new range of mother and child care products released by the UK-based children’s goods retailer Mothercare, a long-term partner of Tusk.

The range — including strollers, cribs, bedding and feeding products — feature wild animals designs, with part of the price going to Tusk.

For example, Mothercare will donate 300 yuan (US$48) to Tusk for each stroller sold.

“I grew up with all these images of rhinos, elephants, giraffes, all kinds of African animals, round about me,” says Mayhew.

“I think it’s very natural for us to collaborate with a company focusing on baby and children’s products. I hope the products with the images of these wonderful animals can engender children’s love for elephants, giraffes and other wild animals.”

A father of four, Mayhew says after he had children, his view of the world changed and he started to think much more about what kind of world he wanted to leave to his children. “We could be the generation that allows many wildlife species to become extinct,” he says. “I think our children will never forgive us for that.”

Key Tusk projects

Having being running for nearly three decades, Tusk now has 50 projects in Africa.

These focus on areas including rainforest preservation, wildlife protection and community construction and education for local people.

African Rainforest Conservancy

The project supports local communities to conserve and restore rainforest. Africa’s rainforests are under immense pressure, with only 30 percent of the original forest area remaining.

The project provides the core funding for the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group, which has launched collaborations between local communities, government and the forestry department.

Local villagers are now governing their forests and stopping anyone from clearing land or poaching timber.

The Mali Elephant Project

The elephants of Mali make the largest annual elephant migration in Africa, but human activity in their range has increased human-elephant conflict.

The project aims to project this population of 550 sub-desert elephants.

The Koiyaki Guide School

The school is located in southern Kenya, neighboring the Maasai Mara National Reserve.

Established in 2005, it aims to educate local people in the tourism industry and other nature-based enterprises, thereby providing employment opportunities and promoting the long-term conservation of the reserve.

Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project

Chimpanzees are endangered as a result of poaching, logging and human encroachment, and experts estimate that they could become extinct in the wild within the next 50 years at the current rate of decline.

The Chimpanzee Conservation Center in Guinea looks after wild chimpanzees that were captured by hunters or traders. Tusk provides financial support to the center.

For more information, visit www.tusk.org/tusk-projects.