NAIROBI (Reuters) – Richard Leakey, a Kenyan conservationist and paleoanthropologist who spearheaded campaigns against the ivory commerce to avoid wasting the dwindling African elephant inhabitants, has died, the Kenyan presidency stated on Sunday. He was 77.
For years Leakey served in varied roles within the authorities together with as director of the state-run National Museums of Kenya and twice as board chairman on the Kenya Wildlife Service.
President Uhuru Kenyatta stated Leakey had “served our nation with distinction”.
“Besides his distinguished profession within the public service, Dr. Leakey is widely known for his distinguished position in Kenya’s vibrant civil society the place he based and efficiently ran plenty of establishments.”
Leakey was the son of palaeontologists Louis and Mary Leakey, whose work helped exhibit that human evolution started in Africa. He was celebrated for his work to avoid wasting wildlife from poachers and for main campaigns against the ivory commerce.
Paula Kahumbu, a wildlife conservationist who heads WildlifeDirect, advised Reuters she had been mentored by Leakey, as had many different younger Kenyans.
“Very brave, he was an individual who stood for integrity whether or not it was in wildlife conservation, whether or not it was associated to archaeological and paleoanthropological analysis at museums or whether or not it was associated to politics,” she stated.
Leakey additionally served Kenya’s head of civil service from July 1999 to March 2001, at a time when then president Daniel Arap Moi was beneath strain from donors to sort out corruption and different inefficiencies in authorities.
He was a co-founder of the Safina Party in 1995.
At the time of his loss of life, he was serving as chairman of the Turkana Basin Institute at Stony Brook University within the United States, which works to facilitate analysis and schooling in palaeontology and archaeology in northern Kenya.
Leakey was additionally a fellow of the UK-based Royal Society and an honorary fellow of the African Academy of Sciences.
(Writing by Elias Biryabarema and George Obulutsa; Editing by Alison Williams)
