Boy meets girl - saves elephants, cheetahs and kudu

"Anyone can do this, anyone can do what I do."  Clive was right, although part of me didn't want to admit it, because I knew it would make me look closer at my own life and wonder how much more could be done.
Clive is one half of the husband-and-wife team who founded PAWS and now run it, ten months a year, barely stopping for breath. Their vision, hard work, and relentless commitment is inspirational, and infectious.

Originally a Lincolnshire boy, Clive met Roma, a Bromley girl, some years ago while on an elephant conservation project in Damaraland, in northern Namibia. Together they came to Okinjima, the vast privately-owned reservation which works hand-in-glove with the Africat Foundation protecting cheetahs, lions and leopards, and helps raise funds by providing top-notch accommodation in the midst of the Namibian bush.
For various reasons, and not just the big cats, Okinjima is one of the most well-known and sought-after places to stay in the country, and Clive and Roma ran the most exclusive bit, The Villa.
(For reference only, this £1000-per-person-per-night idyll was for example home to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie when they recently prepared for the arrival of their child.) And when The Villa was vacant, Clive and Roma had the privilege of basically living there.

Anyway, the point of all this is that Clive and Roma gave up this world of luxury to sink their life savings into founding the PAWS project. The project is two years in, and in that time they and volunteers from across the world have made an impressive start to what is truly and enormous job.
There is so much sickle bush to clear that the work may take 12 years. It may take 20. And when we look out and see sickle bushes all the way to the horizon - in all directions - it can be, to say the least, a bit dispiriting.
But we all know that every metre of bush chopped or fence rolled can save the lives of countless animals and help to restore this land to how it should really be.
One of my favourite sayings is "Pity the man who did nothing because he only could a little."  As Clive has remarked, if everyone who visited this astonishing and generous continent gave back even only half an hour of their time, just imagine how much more could be done.

Henry