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.
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Reflections on Working
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