Richard Leakey
Richard Leakey
Richard Erskine Frere Leakeyis a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician. He is second of the three sons of the archaeologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, and is the younger half-brother of Colin Leakey...
NationalityKenyan
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth19 December 1944
CityNairobi, Kenya
CountryKenya
elephants kenya lived problem
Earlier, 100,000 elephants lived in Kenya and we didn't have any noteworthy problem with it. The problem that we have is not that there are now more elephants.
counts ground hold
Baboons, for example, live on the ground as well as in the trees, where they try to get hold of birds' eggs. What counts is the right balance.
devote minds secure
Let us devote our minds - the one thing we have more of than other apes - and let's secure their future.
few items pieces surviving
One should not forget that there are very few surviving items from this period, often just single, small bones, a tooth, a sliver of the skull. Categorizing these pieces can be very difficult.
vast
I can't think of any other region in the world which is such a vast source of fossils.
convinced
I, too, am convinced that our ancestors came from Africa.
area groups hundred men settled
We think that groups of between 30 and 40 early men would have settled in an area measuring a hundred square kilometers.
concerned few found human nowhere
We are concerned that, in a few years time, this place of discovery, with its wealth of human fossils, the like of which can be found nowhere else in the world, could be completely destroyed.
elephants tourists tourism
The elephants were being slaughtered in masses. Some were even killed in the vicinity of big tourist hotels.
discovery long tasks
Paleoanthropology is not a science that ends with the discovery of a bone. One has to have the original to work with. It is a life-long task.
numbers race next
It's the next annihilation of vast numbers of species. It is happening now, and we, the human race, are its cause
climate planets critical
Climate change: We have never faced a more critical time on our planet
kenya migrants impossible
It is virtually impossible to control Northern Kenya, which is populated chiefly by migrant nomads.