SARAH, DUCHESS OF YORK
LET’S GI V E MO T H E R N AT U R E H E R VOIC E B AC K BY S A R A H , DUC H E S S OF YOR K
I grew up on a farm, surrounded by nature. In many ways, I’ve always been most comfortable in the open air, preferably in the company of children and animals. When my mother left to live in Argentina, my ponies became my best friends. Today, I have six Norfolk terriers who are my pride and joy. I draw a lot of strength from being in the countryside. I’m a keen photographer, and I’m fascinated with capturing patterns in nature: flowers, leaves and trees.
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roamed across most of Asia, but now it is limited to just 15 percent of its original range. In just three generations of animals, its numbers have halved. We need to fight to save this majestic creature. Through The Perfect World Foundation, I have been privileged to meet some of the world’s leading environmentalists and thinkers: Richard Leakey, Sylvia Earle and Sir David Attenborough.
I also love the underwater world. Many years ago, Jean-Michel Cousteau, the environmental filmmaker and son of famed marine conservationist Jacques Cousteau, took me diving in the Bahamas and opened my eyes to the treasures that exist under the sea.
As Sir David, who I was pleased to present with an environmental award in Gothenberg last year, has pointed out, he was born in the geological age of the Holocene – a 12,000-year-long period of stable climate that enabled our species to settle, adopt agriculture and create civilisations.
So I’m incredibly proud to be a global ambassador for The Perfect World Foundation, which is doing so much to promote animal and nature preservation and conservation. Among the many issues I’ve been focusing on is the plight of the Asian elephant, which is threatened by poaching and the loss of habitat. It once
But in his lifetime, everything has changed. We now live in what has been called the Anthropocene, an age when human activity has come to dominate the Earth. Humans are now so all-powerful – and so careless – that we are wiping out other species without even noticing that we have done so.
