Join us for our next Conservation Chat on Thursday, October 30th at 4pm PDT/ 6pm Central.

IEF is pleased to welcome Helene Barnes as our guest. Helene grew up in the UK and received a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and Masters in Protected Landscape Management which included three months of data collection in the Luangwa Valley in Zambia. It was there that she had her first encounters with wild elephants – sometimes rather too close!

She then moved to Vietnam to Co-ordinate Fauna & Flora International’s (FFI) Asia Pacific Programme which included supporting their Sumatran Elephant focused projects in North Sumatra and Aceh where she first encountered elephants at the Tangkahan Conflict Response Unit. Helene moved to Aceh after the 2024 Indian Ocean Tsunami to help coordinate FFI’s emergency response and then to manage community based conservation initiatives across five districts of West Aceh.

After getting married to an Acehnese man, establishing a small-holding and becoming immersed in rural Acehnese life, in 2010 Helene and several colleagues established a new local NGO to focus on providing small-scale support to empower communities to protect and manage their local natural resources. Over the last 15 years, they have supported forest-edge and coastal communities to understand their local wildlife and wild places and find sustainable solutions to the challenges they face.

We are excited to discuss elephants, conservation, and so much more with Helene! We hope you can attend-it’s free to join!

Come to Fort Worth!

21st International Elephant Conservation & Research Symposium
December 5-8,2025

The 21st International Elephant Conservation & Research Symposium is going to be incredible! Taking place at the beautiful new meeting facilities at the Fort Worth Zoo, this will be your opportunity to meet their newest herd member, baby elephant Lady Bird, as well as enjoy 4 days of elephant talks covering research, conservation, diseases, conflict mitigation, management, and more!

Don’t miss out on this important event! Register today before the price goes up.

Upcoming IEF Events