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NAIROBI, Kenya — Kuki Gallmann, one of Kenya’s most renowned conservationists and the author of the best-selling book “I Dreamed of Africa,” was shot and wounded in an ambush by raiders on Sunday morning.
Mrs. Gallmann, 73, who was hit in the hip and stomach area, was being airlifted to Nairobi for treatment, her family said. She had been riding in a vehicle on her ranch with Kenyan wildlife rangers when she was attacked, and the bullet flew through the door, hitting her.
“This is horrendous for Kenya and horrendous for her,” said Iain Douglas-Hamilton, a close friend and a well-known expert on elephant behavior.
For the past several weeks, waves of armed pastoralists have invaded her ranch in northern Kenya, part of a wider problem in which many farmers in the area have been terrorized.
Thousands of pastoralists from other parts of the country have swept into farms, burning down houses and chasing away residents, despite the Kenyan military and police services deploying forces to push the invaders out.
Mrs. Gallmann, a passionate, Italian-born conservationist who has been living in Kenya for decades, has been attacked several times before. This month, raiders burned down one of her most beloved retreats on her property, which had been a favorite place of her now-dead son.
In the past several days, the violence seemed to be drawing a tighter ring around her.
“Pokot militia openly carrying firearms,” she wrote in a text message to me on April 15. (The Pokot are an ethnic group in northern Kenya.) “Not just herders. Group of armed men without livestock. 13 firearm spotted.”
On April 17, she sent another message: “2 Arsons by herders and shooting reported.” She added, “Fire ongoing.”
After the shooting on Sunday, she was still conscious and speaking, her family said. The attack happened around 9 a.m., and by 1 p.m., she was undergoing surgery at a Nairobi hospital. Mrs. Gallmann’s friends said that a combat-trained field medic from a nearby British military base in Nanyuki had helped stabilize her and that she was flown to the Nairobi hospital by helicopter.
Mrs. Gallmann’s vast ranch is in Laikipia, a highland plateau north of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Herders from pastoralist communities, including the Pokot, have harassed Laikipia farmers for years, saying they need more land to graze their animals.
This year, the violence has reached unprecedented levels. Invading herdsmen shot and killed a British rancher in March and have continued to burn down houses and shoot at farmers and police officers.
The Kenyan security services have deployed hundreds of officers, including some based on Mrs. Gallmann’s ranch, with a Humvee parked in her front yard.
But Kenya’s government is increasingly distracted by national elections scheduled for August. Just this past week, violence broke out across the country during primaries, a worrying sign for many Kenyans who already dread the elections because they often stir up ethnic tensions and lead to bloodshed in the country.