Italienne de naissance, Kuki Gallmann s'est installée au Kenya en 1972, dont elle a obtenu plus tard la nationalité.

Après la mort tragique de son mari et de son fils, elle a consacré sa vie à la coexistence entre population et vie sauvage à travers la gestion de la réserve Ol Ari Nyiro dans la Rift Valley (devenue entretemps le plus récent parc national Kenyan, Laikipia Nature Conservancy*), et la création de la fondation Gallmann Memorial Foundation (voir par ailleurs)

Malheureusement 16 000 ha de ce parc sont partis en fumée début mars 2015, incendie probablement déclenché par des bergers locaux.

Kuki Gallmann a également écrit 5 livres, dont une autobiographie "I dreamed of Africa", dont un film a été tiré.

Fascinated by Africa, Gallmann moved to Kenya in 1972 with her husband Paolo and son Emanuele, and acquired Ol ari Nyiro, a 98,000 acre estate in Western Laikipia, in Kenya's Great Rift Valley. At the time the estate was still a cattle ranch, which she would later transform into a conservation park. Both her husband and son eventually died in tragic accidents within a few years.

Kuki decided to stay on in Kenya and to make a difference. She chose to work toward ecological conservation in the early '80s, becoming a Kenyan citizen. As a living memorial to Paolo and Emanuele, she established the Gallmann Memorial Foundation (GMF), which promotes coexistence of people and nature in Africa and is active in education, biodiversity research, habitat protection, reforestation, community service, peace and reconciliation, poverty alleviation and public health. GMF promotes environmental education of Kenyan students. She dedicated Ol ari Nyiro to this ideal, converting it into the Laikipia Nature Conservancy.^[1]

Gallmann published five books, all global best-sellers. The first, her autobiography I Dreamed Of Africa, became a feature film.

* Laikipia Nature Conservancy is a biodiversity oasis that supports and protects an extraordinary variety of plants and animals, the only pristine forest in the area, which includes endangered species such as elephants, cheetah, over 470 species of birds and rare and endemic plants and insects, in addition to archaeological sites.