Lawrence Anthony

Lawrence Anthony (17 September 1950 – 2 March 2012) was a South African conservationist, environmentalist, explorer and author. He was the long-standing head of conservation at the Thula Thula animal reserve in Zululand, South Africa, and the founder of The Earth Organization, a privately registered, independent, international conservation and environmental group. He was an international member of the Explorers Club of New York and a member of the National Council of the Southern Africa Association for the Advancement of Science. Anthony had a reputation for bold conservation initiatives, including the rescue of the Baghdad Zoo at the height of the US-led Coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003, and negotiations with the Lord's Resistance Army rebel army in Southern Sudan, to raise awareness of the environment and protect endangered species, including the last of the Northern White Rhinoceros. Details of his conservation activities appeared in regional and international media including CNN, CBS, BBC, Al Jazeera and Sky TV and featured in Reader's Digest, the Smithsonian, the Explorers Journal, Africa Geographic, the Men's Journal, Shape magazine, and Elle magazine. Anthony died of a heart attack at the age of 61 before his planned March 2012 conservation gala dinner in Durban to raise international awareness for the rhino-poaching crisis and to launch his new book, The Last Rhinos: My Battle to Save One of the World's Greatest Creatures. Following his death, there were reports that some of the elephants he worked to save came to his family's home in accordance with the way elephants usually mourn the death of one of their own.