Richard Leakey

I’d like to thank you all for your comments about Mt Kenya and the fence. Fencing the Virungas – well, one of the terrible consequences of putting up fences in similar places is that the wire is stolen and converted into snares. Last year however, we did build a dry stone wall around some parts [...]

Mr. Kaka updated me about the situation on the ground which remains quite sensitive. For now we only know that investigations are underway by a number of pressure groups and it may well ignite interest from the IUCN and World Heritage Commission. Until we have more facts we cannot take any action so I will [...]

Forests are amongst the most valuable renewable resource in Africa – millions of us are dependent on them. Climate change is a major long term threat, the charcoal industry supplying domestic fuel for countless people in Africa’s towns (see my article for the BBC about this). But there’s an even more sinister threat – land [...]

I am always encouraged when I discover how much rural communities are doing, with meager resources for the conservation of biodiversity. Today I would like to welcome The Water Hole an appropriately named blog run by the East African Wildlife Society, the Cousin Island and the Giraffe Sanctuary blogs. All three new blogs represent important [...]

I have been serving as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stony Brook University where we established the Stony Brook World Environmental Forum, and the Annual Human Evolution Symposium. As many of you are probably aware, I made my name in paleoanthropology, studying our long extinct human relatives. But I’m not locked [...]

It’s not that there’s nothing of concern to discuss. In fact, I am deeply worried about recent reports in one of Kenya’s most precious forests. But I will not trouble you with details until my team has verified the allegations in the next few days. Today I leave you with an impression of the wide [...]

No doubt many of you are following the climate change discussions – it’s impossible to ignore isn’t it? It infuriates me that it has taken us this long to start talking seriously. We have known about the risks for decades. I’m convinced that climate change is the most serious threat facing our planet today, it’s [...]

After spending many years struggling to achieve wildlife conservation in Kenya, I decided to start WildlifeDirect to solve a very real problem in Africa, the lack of adequate funds to protect the continents unique wildlife heritage. A cash endowment was the obvious solution, but nobody would give us the amounts of money that we required. [...]