PROFILE
Paleoanthropologist, political advisor, and environmentalist Richard Leakey has been a key voice behind wildlife conservation and preservation for over 40 years. He was named one of TIME’s 100 Greatest Minds of the 20th Century.
Son of the Louis B. and Mary, Leakey and his family have been credited with some of the most significant fossil discoveries in history. The Leakeys have unearthed Proconsul africanus, Australopithicus boisei, Homo habilis, and the footprints of Australopithecus afarensis, known as the skeleton “Lucy.” Leakey’s own team discovered the most intact early human skeleton ever found, nicknamed “Turkana Boy” and referred to as either Homo erectus or Homo ergaster in 1984.
The author of over 100 articles and books, Leakey examined the five great catastrophic extinctions in the history of the planet in his book, The Sixth Extinction. Written in 1995, before recent increased environmental awareness, Leakey stressed how human beings are dangerously reducing biodiversity, damaging eco-systems and possibly precipitating the next major mass extinction, which could affect humans.
His other books include Origins, Origins Reconsidered, The Origins of Humankind, and Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa’s Natural Treasures. In 2011 Leakey served as a consultant on the IMAX film Born To Be Wild. His latest National Geographic film project Bones of Turkana premiered in May 2012 on PBS. Currently, an IMAX adaptation of The Sixth Extinction is in the works.
Leakey entered the world of politics in 1994, helping to form a political party opposed to the country's corrupt government. He was appointed to then President Moi’s cabinet, as Director of Kenyan Wildlife Services in an attempt to curtail elephant poaching. Leakey also served as Director of the National Museums of Kenya. He left politics in 2001 in order to form his own political party to fight government corruption.
Now a Professor of Anthropology at Stony Brook University and an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London (FRS), Leakey has convened the Stony Brook World Environmental Forum and the Human Evolution Symposiums and Workshops. He is Chair of The Turkana Basin Institute at Stony Brook and Transparency International-Kenya.
Leakey is the founder of WildlifeDirect, an online service that supports conservationists and allows people to help save the world’s most endangered species.
For a biography of Richard Leakey, click here
“The event was perfect. He was great. Everyone loved him. It really couldn't have been better. We got a lot of different people that we hadn't gotten before at our lectures and we also sold 200 books. It was terrific!”
-Denver Museum of Natural History