In addition to being an ordinary Namibian and in addition to being a Himba I'm also a trained conservationist.

And by the way, if I come across as a sort of rabid, hippie conservationist, it's purely a figment of your imagination.

Richard Ellis, a marine conservationist at the American Museum of Natural History, believes that orcas are smart and would not do such a thing purely on impulse. This was premeditated, he told The Associated Press.

The gharial and king cobra are two of India's most iconic reptiles, and they're endangered because of polluted waterways. Conservationist Romulus Whitaker shows rare footage of these magnificent animals and urges us to save the rivers that sustain their lives and our own.

My own epiphany as a conservationist came in 1953, while a Harvard graduate student, searching for rare ants found in the mountain forests of Cuba, ants that shine in the sunlight metallic green or metallic blue, according to species, and one species, I discovered, metallic gold.

The outcome at CITES has brought into sharp relief increasing tensions between industrial and environmental interests, as if these were diametrically opposed. Surely a twenty first century fisherman does not want to see the basis of his or her living degraded and destroyed, nor does a modern conservationist want to ring fence the environment and stop people from making a living.