Why we should listen to elephants
Laikipia, Kenya ‘An elephant has fallen over,’ said the man running up to me. My first thought was that…
My time in Somalia with Michael Meacher, Tony Benn’s ‘vicar on earth’
East Africa The late Michael Meacher represented almost everything I loathe in a politician. Before his death in 2015,…
For now, here in Laikipia we have the only population of black panthers in the world
Laikipia A female black panther was recently photographed at our neighbours’ place. Exactly like Kipling’s Bagheera, she was ‘inky…
The British see Africa only in terms of aid but there are business opportunities aplenty
Kenya As the Union Flag was lowered during Kenya’s Uhuru ceremony in 1963, the Duke of Edinburgh turned to…
Why former prisoners make the best lawyers
Kampala I am terrified of being with former death-row prisoner Susan Kigula. This is because she qualified for her…
Me vs an eight-foot spitting cobra
Laikipia, Kenya ‘The End,’ I typed. The book that had taken me 14 years to write. I rose from…
How I rewilded the African bush
Laikipia My two Jersey bulls Halcyon and Hosanna were grazing happily on the lawn in front of the house…
I saw my future in the entrails of a butchered sheep
Laikipia, Kenya The Turkana cowhands are on Facebook and they spend a lot of time on their cell phones,…
I’m taking the bull by the horns and heading to the prize show
Laikipia ‘This year we’re too broke to take our cattle to the show,’ I told Mark. For six months we…
Wild life
Maasai Mara Last night the hyenas made off with our fudge cake. We are camped with a group of…
A cow is better than a bank balance
Laikipia, Kenya A minotaur head glowers at me through the bathroom window while I am brushing my teeth in…
The joys of early rising
Laikipia I wake at 4 a.m. these days. At that time you might hear a lion or a braying zebra,…
Tripping in the African bush
Laikipia, Kenya Neighbours Tom and Jo came by with a bucketful of wild African mushrooms, which they had collected in…
Why do British charities want to shut down private schools in Africa?
Why would anyone who claims to care about the world’s poorest children try to shut down their schools? It’s strange…
Farming is a hard life no matter where you do it
Laikipia, Kenya Erupe is a Kenyan farmer. He owns a smallholding of a few acres not far from my own…
At the deathbed of Sudan, the last male northern white rhino
Laikipia, Kenya Before vets put him down in Kenya this week, I attended the deathbed of Sudan, the…
The wisdom of toads, termites and wait-a-bit thorns
Laikipia Off Madagascar the other day the Indian Ocean gave birth to a little storm called 11S. As its gyre…
Oxfam’s troubles began when it became politically correct
In the early 1980s when I was a schoolboy, my father, Brian Hartley, worked for Oxfam during a famine in…
Cold Comfort Farm comes to Kenya
Laikipia I woke with the breath of a leopard a few feet from me as I lay in my bed.…
How to bee-proof yourself
Kenya First comes a distant hum, rising in volume until I hear it coming straight at me like Niki Lauda…
Aidan Hartley: A plague of ravenous zebras
Laikipia, Kenya The zebra lacks a rumen and eats at least twice as much as a cow. On our…
Why Kenya matters
Laikipia Flying home across Laikipia’s ranchlands with Martin after a farmers’ meeting, I see the plateau dotted with cattle…
Wild life
Laikipia Ripping up the black cotton soil on the farm’s high savannah I get a sense of what it must…
‘Kill! Kill!’ yelled the mob
Laikipia, Kenya Following Kenya’s recently concluded elections, I took a walk on my Laikipia farm and lit up a cigar,…
Wild life
Indian Ocean coast Like most men I wonder if I have been much good as a father, but one thing…
