National Geographic’s new four-part series Secrets of the Elephants brings viewers up close and personal with one of the world’s most beloved animals. The series, executive produced by James Cameron and narrated by Natalie Portman, explores different groups of elephants around Africa and Asia, including in the desert, the rainforest, and the savanna. To uncover more about these elephants, National Geographic looked to Dr. Paula Kahumbu, an elephant expert and National Geographic Explorer, to present the episodes, premiering April 21 on National Geographic and available April 22 on Disney+.

Kahumbu, who lives and works in Kenya, traveled between the four productions while the series was filmed concurrently in Africa and Asia over the course of a year. “It was extraordinary,” she tells Shondaland. “They did this production at lightning speed, especially considering that most films of this nature would take three to five years. This is a phenomenal achievement. The team was really, really amazing.”

Beyond her work with Secrets of the Elephants, Kahumbu is the CEO of WildlifeDirect and a member of the boards of National Geographic and the World Wildlife Fund. As a conservationist, she is best known for her efforts to halt the illegal trade in elephant ivory, as well as her campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of preserving Africa’s natural heritage. We spoke with her about elephants, climate change, and what everyday people can do to ensure the protection of the world’s wildlife.

EMILY ZEMLER: How did you get involved in this series?

DR. PAULA KAHUMBU: I’ve been associated with National Geographic for quite some time. I got an award with them in 2010, and I’ve continued being associated with them. I did my Ph.D. on elephants, and I’ve been working on elephants and elephant conservation for what feels like forever. When National Geographic said they were going to start doing Secrets of the Elephants, they called me up one day out of the blue and said, “We’re doing this great series. What do you think?” And I was like, “Sounds amazing.” I was expecting to be asked to be an expert — a scientist to give them some of the scientific input — and they said, “We actually think you’d make a really good presenter.”

I was a little bit blown away. It was not expected at all. It was a fantastic opportunity, and it’s the first time that I’ve ever done this kind of a role at such a global level. It’s also the first time that Disney and National Geographic have chosen an African to present an African animal for such a landmark series.

EZ: That seems really important.

PK: I think so. It’s an issue that I’ve been talking about for quite some time — the need for representation. Not just because the whole world needs to know that there are African experts, but also because in Africa we want Africans to be at the front line when it comes to elephant conservation. They are one of the most endangered species on Earth, and Africans have never seen Africans talking about them.

But I believe that I was selected because I am an elephant expert. I did my Ph.D. on elephants, I started at Princeton, so there’s some real background that I have in elephant conservation. But it was also a great opportunity to go and find out more about elephants across the continent because, although I did my Ph.D. in elephants, I studied them in Kenya, and I’ve been working in Kenya. The series took me across Africa and Asia, which was just a dream. It was amazing exposure and a great chance to learn how National Geographic makes films. It’s the most powerful way to move hearts and minds. So, it was a really, really great chance for us to save elephants.

EZ: As someone who is an expert on elephants, do you think there are still secrets about them to discover?

PK: When they said, “We’re doing Secrets of the Elephants,” my first reaction was exactly that. It’s one of the most studied animals on Earth. They’ve been filmed to death. But the truth is that every year we discover new and amazing things about elephants. They are one of the most extraordinary animals. They’re so intelligent. Their brains are so huge. It’s no surprise to me that we will keep discovering more and more things about them. And every time we discover something new, it unveils a whole bunch of new stuff that we couldn’t possibly have imagined.

EZ: What’s an example of that?

PK: Just recently — and it is not in the film — there was a study on elephants and their ability to smell and identify their relatives through the dung. They did this in zoos in America where they were planning to bring some elephants together again that had been separated 12 years ago. A female elephant could remember an elephant she had met 12 years earlier just from the smell of her dung, which was mixed in with a ton of other elephant dung. When you think about the size of their brain and the fact that their brain is so complex in ways very different from ours, it’s amazing. The way they manage information and knowledge about the land because they have to remember this vast landscape. They have to remember thousands of other relatives and friends. It’s no surprise to me that we will keep discovering things.

But in the series, I saw things that completely blew my mind, because I thought I knew elephants. When we went to Zimbabwe, for example, there is a sequence where they’re walking down those cliffs, and the way that they did it really surprised me. I’ve seen elephants navigating very treacherous terrains in Kenya, but I’ve never seen them doing what they do in Zimbabwe.

What I learned, and now I really appreciate, is that elephants will figure something out just like humans. They’ll figure out how to solve a problem, and they will communicate and share that knowledge to the others in the family. And then that knowledge will be transmitted for generations. They will never forget it because they keep transmitting it, and in a way it helps them to survive. But it also can mean that it takes a very long time for them to forget things that are painful or difficult, like the poaching and the trauma that they experience in hunting, poaching, or culling.

EZ: What is the greatest threat to elephants right now?

PK: The biggest threat to elephants is habitat loss. The expansion of large-scale farming, for example, and infrastructure, especially in Africa and in Asia, into the wild landscapes that elephants need. They need very large landscapes. They need to move between different kinds of habitats because they have such enormous dietary needs. If they can’t move, they get squeezed into smaller and smaller areas, and it makes it very difficult for them to survive. That means they can become destructive, but they especially come into conflict with humans. That’s where most of them end up getting killed. If you put a human and an elephant side by side, there will be a physical altercation, and usually the elephants end up being sacrificed to save the people.

EZ: You discuss this in the series, but can you explain how the climate crisis is impacting these elephant populations?

PK: Elephants live in all kinds of habitats, from coastal forests, tops of mountains, and of course, the driest deserts. In all those places, especially in Africa and in Asia, we are seeing big changes in those environments because of climate change. In northern Kenya, for example, it’s getting much drier. Elephant females must drink every single day in order to produce milk for their babies, and their babies will continue needing milk for several years — four or five years. What that means is that elephants are affected by climate change because there’s less water and rivers are not flowing the way they used to flow, so elephants have to dig for that water. It also pushes elephants to move. They need to move in to other places to find water and food. So, climate change is affecting them primarily in terms of their movements.

Just last year, an elephant walked all the way into Nairobi. It literally walked almost to my house where I live. It was less than 500 meters from my own house. This was in the middle of the drought in Kenya. That’s not the only time we saw these really strange arrival developments. They’re showing up in the strangest of places, and that’s because of climate change.

EZ: Why is a series like this so important?

PK: You only have to look at American and Northern European audiences to know that wildlife documentaries really move audiences to care about animals. And especially to care about things like climate change. The whole environmental movement, actually, has been driven by these films. Films have a lot of power. They influence people’s knowledge and what they care about.

With animals like elephants, which everybody has so much knowledge about, it’s hard to tell a story that is going to really touch our hearts again because everyone thinks they know so much about them. But this series is going to pull at people’s heartstrings even more than ever before because you do see scenes that have never been shot before. You see the emotions and the proximity and the closeness of elephants with each other.

The only way that we’re going to save these animals is by telling their stories in an intimate way, the way that it’s done in this series, where you get to meet and know the individual elephants and where you can follow the story and feel their pain and experience. Facts alone are not going to move us; it’s emotions. It’s a sense of relatedness with them. Elephants, of all animals, are like human beings. We can truly relate to them.

EZ: If someone does feel moved by this show, what can they do to take action?

PK: It’s really important that the people who watch the series go straight to the National Geographic website. There’s a lot of information there about the series, about elephants, and about all the explorers that Nat Geo are supporting. There are explorers across Africa and in Asia working at the front line with elephants. There are people who work on all the different aspects of elephants, whether it’s research or with communities, with conservation, dealing with wildlife crime and trafficking of ivory products. So, supporting National Geographic is a great way of making a big difference.

EZ: On a more general level, how can viewers become better citizens of the Earth?

PK: There’s a lot of things that one can do. When people get to know a lot about elephants and nature in general, I would say people really should share that information. If it was my birthday, I would throw a watch party for the show. Have all my friends over and say, “Let’s together come up with an idea of what we can do together.” For example, I work with children in Kenya, and we often ask children what they want, and then we go out, and we do appeals, and we get these things in for children. We take them to the national parks, we bring them books, we show them films, we spend a lot of time listening to what people really want so that we give them what matters to them.

One of the things that I think is really missing is a really deep, solid, direct connection between people in the West and people in Africa or in Asia. I would love to see more engagement. Reach out to those people on the ground. Thank them for what they’ve done. Speak to them. They’re usually very accessible through all social media — I know we are and many of the people that I worked with on this film. I met amazing people who live in the desert or in the rainforest in Asia. And it’s really heartbreaking. These people are doing so much, and they’re sacrificing their whole life to save elephants, but they’re just alone and isolated. I mean, just somebody saying, “Thank you, what you’re doing is amazing. What can I do to help, and who else can I share this with?”

In addition, I think everybody around the world should say no to ivory. The moment you start buying ivory, it basically triggers the killing of elephants. That’s something which is very easy to do. And many people in the U.S. have done such incredible things. They’ve protested on the streets of the U.S., and they’ve also lobbied their congressmen and senators to ban ivory trade within the States. These are all steps people can take to help.

Emily Zemler is a freelance writer and journalist based in London. She regularly contributes to the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, PureWow, and TripSavvy, and is the author of two books. Follow her on Twitter @emilyzemler.

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