Famous Kenyan paleontologist Richard Leakey is dead

World-renowned paleontologist and politician, Kenyan Richard Leakey has died at the age of 77. “This afternoon I learned with deep sadness the news of the death of Dr Richard Erskine Frere Leakey, the former head of the Kenya Wildlife Service”President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a statement on Sunday (January 2nd).

Son of Louis and Mary Leakey, two of the most famous discoverers of hominid skeletons, Richard Leakey, born in Kenya on December 19, 1944, was apparently destined for paleoanthropology. A fate that he nevertheless tries to flee in his younger years, by working as a safari guide.

However, he followed in his parents’ footsteps when he obtained, at 23, without a university education, a scholarship from the National Geographic Society for archaeological research on the shores of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, the first of a long list of excavations in this inhospitable semi-desert land.

In the 1970s, he led several expeditions crowned with major and unprecedented discoveries, including the first skulls ofHomo habilis (1.9 million years old) in 1972 andHomo erectus (1.6 million years) in 1975. Its notoriety is made: in 1977, the magazine Time devotes his “one” to him ; in 1981, the BBC published a documentary in seven episodes, of which he was the narrator and presenter, on the evolution of humanity.

His most famous discovery dates from 1984, during an exploration in Lake Tukana, where he unearthed an almost complete skeleton ofHomo erectus of 1.63 meters, dead 1.5 million years ago: the “Turkana boy”, the most complete fossil ever found of one of our ancestors.

Fight against poachers

In 1989, he was approached by the then president, Daniel arap Moi, to become the head of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). There he led a vigorous campaign against the poaching of elephant ivory.

In 1993, his small plane Cessna crashed in the Rift Valley, Kenya. He had both legs amputated as a result of the accident. “At the time, there were regular threats against me and I lived with armed guards, but I made the decision not to dramatize and not to tell me ‘they tried to kill me’, he said in 2015 to Financial Times. I chose to continue living. “

He was forced to leave the KWS a year later and entered politics by joining the many critical voices of the corrupt regime of autocrat Moi. His career as an opponent was short-lived and Daniel arap Moi convinced him, in 1998, to lead the fight against corruption. The task turns out to be impossible, he throws in the towel two years later.

In 2015, due to a new poaching crisis, another president, Uhuru Kenyatta, called on him to take over the reins of KWS, this time as chairman of the board, a position he held until 2018.

Cancer had ravaged his skin, his disheveled hair testified to the weight of the years, he had also suffered from repeated liver and kidney disease. But, at over 70, he was still producing his wine on a farm in the Rift Valley.