Natasha Illum Berg
1971 Born to Danish mother Marianne Illum Berg and Danish / Swedish father Iens Illum Berg. One sister, Karina (1965)
Brought up on family hunting estate / wildlife and conservation reserve “Eriksberg” in Blekinge, Sweden.
1989 Finishes school from a boarding school in mid Sweden (Lundsbergs Skola).
1989-1990 Goes to South Africa to work as a helping hand on game farms
1991 writes a collection of poems in Swedish and tried to publish for the first time.
1993 Starts a forestry education in Denmark.
1994 Moves to Tanzania and starts working as an apprentice professional hunter.
1998-2000 Starts working as a fully licensed professional hunter in Tanzania.
Writes and publishes “Floder af rød jord” (literally translated the English title would be “Rivers of red earth” but it has not yet been sold in English). The book is about the journey of becoming East Africa’s only female licensed professional hunter. It is about what drives a hunters heart. It is about love for nature and being a natural part of it. The book was written in Danish, but is published in six languages.
2002-2003 Writes and publishes “Tea on the blue sofa” sub-title “whispers of love and longing from Africa” An autobiographical love letter to the man she loved who was murdered outside her home in East Africa. The book was written in English, but is published in five languages.
2004-2005 Writes and publishes “Abens hjerte” (the English title would be “So wanton a God”) A novel set between Tanzania and Spain. How three people (a bullfighter, a painter and a professional hunter) deal with love’s relationship to time, changeability and distance. Published in danish so far.
2008 Publishes “Looking at Harry" - a collection of short stories. Written in English translated into Danish by the Author. So far the book has been published in Denmark.
Became first woman member of the African Professional hunters association A.P.H.A.
2010 writes and published the novel “Vildnis”. The book was written in english but is published in Danish and Swedish.
2011 Had the honour to head an expedition where she took ten severely physically disabled people on on foot right across Namibia. It was made into an eight program (one hour per program) series. Filmed by Swedens national television, SVT, and shown November, December 2011. "Mot alla odds"
December 2011 Starts writing the “anti-thesis” to Tea on the blue sofa. Autobiographical “All will be well.” This time it is not a letter to a person who is no longer here, but a presentation of her life and the world as she sees it, to a person who is not here yet, the child she is expecting. (Finished 2014, but not yet published.)
8 November 2011 Gave birth to her daughter Mink Fredrika.
2012 When returning to hunt buffalo after one and a half years she is shocked and horrified to see the bush full of poached elephant carcasses, small sundry herds of elephant lacking normal family patters, single calf elephants running around on their own. The Chinese surging demand for ivory has set in all over East Africa and Natasha's focus starts changing rapidly.
2013-2015 Starts making the documentary “Skypaths” with awardwinning documentary filmmaker Kire Godal which is expected to be finished at the end of 2016. Involves herself deeply in elephant conservation. She and Torben Wind, set up a foundation. “Ivory Black foundation” that works to save the elephant in the wild by reducing consumption of ivory through behavioral and cultural pressure in China.
("Ivory Black (PBk9) was invented by the Romans as a general purpose black and for the best grades, pure ivory was burned. It is the deep velvety black found in the backgrounds of Rembrandt’s portraits.”)
Natasha continues to be a hunter/conservationist and to write.