In the 1970s, one of the densest populations of elephants on the African continent roamed the Luangwa Valley of Zambia. By the end of the next decade, massive poaching for the ivory trade had decimated herds throughout Africa, and the elephant population in North Luangwa National Park had plunged from 17,000 to 1,300. Though international authorities shut down the ivory trade in 1990, poaching remained a way of life for many in the Luangwa Valley.

Hammerskjoeld Simwinga known as Hammer has helped to change that. Simwinga, who grew up in the valley, began his work with the North Luangwa Conservation Project, founded by American zoologists Mark and Delia Owens. With small loans, Simwinga encouraged villagers to open general stores and grinding mills, providing economic alternatives to poaching. He also helped farmers switch to protein-rich, high-yield crops, reducing their dependence on bushmeat.

When the NLCP ran afoul of the Zambian government in the mid-1990s and was forced to drop funding for its local development programs, Simwinga persisted. With no salary, no title, and no transportation beyond a bicycle, Simwinga continued to build local support for conservation, eventually forming a new Zambian NGO. His programs now reach more than 35,000 people, and income in the region has increased a hundredfold. Elephant poaching in the park is almost entirely controlled.

Simwinga was awarded one of six 2007 Goldman Environmental Prizes at a ceremony in San Francisco.. The award money, he says, will help him expand his work throughout the Luangwa Valley.

He is named after former United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjld, who died in a plane crash in Zambia in 1961. Hammer Simwinga appeared on Time Magazine's list of "Heroes of the Environment" October 2007

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