As the head of the Kenya Wildlife Service, Richard Leakey played a leading role in persuading international donors to commit $150m to improving wildlife conservation in Kenya
RICHARD LEAKEY, who died on January 2nd aged 77, was the heir on both sides to a dynasty of palaeontologists who helped prove that Africa was where humankind emerged—a notion that was controversial to many until the 1970s. But it was as a rousing advocate, first in the service of wildlife conservation and then of multiparty democracy in Kenya, that he forged his own way.
Having worked in his 20s and 30s almost exclusively on the distant past, Mr Leakey leaped onto the contemporary stage in 1989 when he was appointed to run Kenya’s national wildlife service and save the country’s dwindling elephant population. One of his first moves was to persuade President Daniel arap Moi to set fire to 12 tonnes of ivory that had been seized from poachers.
Outside the ruling party’s tent, however, he proved a forceful political adversary. Kenya in the early 1990s had slowly begun to allow opposition politics to find voice after almost a decade as a one-party state. Channelling Benjamin Franklin, the American ambassador at the time warned Moi’s opponents to hang together if they were not to “all hang separately”. In those early days Mr Leakey seemed to many to be their natural leader.
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