If you don’t know Richard Leakey, you may remember the man who persuaded Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi to burn about $3-million worth of ivory in 1988, writes Fiona Macleod.
The burning pyre of elephant tusks was a highly publicised statement against the international trade in ivory. Many conservationists in South Africa have not forgiven Leakey for the spectacle, arguing it was a PR exercise that has not helped conservation.
Leakey has never been one to shrink from the brink: when both his legs were chopped off in an aeroplane crash in the early 1990s, he strapped on a couple of prostheses, got up and walked.
His spats with Arap Moi have seen him in and out of some of the most influential government positions over the past 30 years. These include director of the National Museums of Kenya, director of the Kenya Wildlife Service for two separate terms and, more recently, head of the civil service and secretary to the Cabinet. In between, he founded the Kenyan opposition party, Safina.
He comes from a family that is world famous for looking backwards in order to look forwards. His contributions to palaeo-anthropological research have seen him make some important fossil finds in East Africa, including a 1,9-million-year-old skull of Homo habilis.
About his own future he is not clear, having resigned from the government in February. His new book, Wildlife Wars, is due out later this year and then, at the age of 57, he says: “I’m still, I hope, young enough to think of some other things to do. But I’m not thinking yet.”