Who is Richard Leakey, the man whose grave is covered with stones.
Richard Leakey was a Kenyan conservationist and died at the age of 77 years in January 2022.
Up to the time of his death, Leakey had engaged in several activities in the country ranging from conservation, civil societies and politics.
His stars aligned when he committed his life in fight against poaching and burnt hundreds of ivory as a deterrent mechanism against illegal poaching which was a threat to one of Kenya’s Big Game Animals.
In his active days, Leakey served in different positions in Kenya’s government. In 1968, Leakey was appointed as the head of National Museums of Kenya. A position that he served even after the first President of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, died up to 1989.
After serving as the head of National Museums for 21 years, Richard Leakey was appointed as the head of Wildlife Conservation and management department now Kenya Wildlife Service. It is during his tenure at the helm of the wildlife conservation department that he devoted himself to ending corruption in the government agency, fighting illegal poaching and restoring security in the government owned parks.
While still at the helm of the wildlife body, a plane that he was flying crashed in 1993 and his two legs were amputated below the knees but that did not kill his morale in serving the country.
Leakey however, resigned from the agency in 1994 citing interference from the late president Daniel arap Moi and founded his own party known as Safina party symbolized by the Noah’s ark.
Upon learning of his resignation from the helm of the wildlife agency, foreign actors mounted pressure on government and he returned to the agency for one year between 1998 and 1999.
In 1999 he was made the secretary to the cabinet by the then President Daniel arap Moi. A position he served for only three years up to 2001.
After exiting cabinet in 2001, Leakey turned to civil societies, writing books and lecturing. Leakey wrote many books including The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind and his memoir in collaboration with Virginia Morell, Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa’s Natural Treasures.
Leakey was the founder of an internet based non-governmental organization, Wildlife Direct, which he used to educate masses on endangered species and connect donors with conservationists.
Before being appointed as the chairperson of Kenya Wildlife Service in 2015, a position he served for close to three years, Leakey served as an interim chair of anticorruption body referred to as Transparency International.
