Richard Leakey

The son of famed anthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey, Richard Leakey began his own career as a paleoanthropologist after discovering a fossilized australopithecine jaw near Lake Natron in Tanzania. He went on to make several important hominid fossil discoveries that placed human ancestors in Africa as early as 3.5 million years ago. In 1989, he became director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, where he halted the country's rampant elephant poaching and helped pass a worldwide ban on the ivory trade. In 1995, after leaving the government, he formed Safina-Swahili for "Noah's Ark"-a new Kenyan reformist political party.

 

Resources for Teachers and Students

Reflections on Working Towards Peace