Richard Erskine Frere Leakey FRS (19 December 1944 – 2 January 2022) was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician.

[2] Leakey served in the powerful office of cabinet secretary and head of public service during the tail end of President Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi's government.

Leakey co-founded the "Turkana Basin Institute" in an academic partnership with Stony Brook University, where he was an anthropology professor.

[8] The Leakey boys participated in games conducted by both adults and children, in which they tried to imitate early humans, catching springhare and small antelope by hand on the Serengeti.

[11] Leakey chose to support himself, borrowed £500 from his parents for a Land Rover and went into the trapping and skeleton supply business with Kamoya Kimeu.

[21] He worked excavating at Lake Baringo and continued his photographic safari business, making enough money to buy a house in Karen, a pleasant suburb of Nairobi.

[24] They offered the museum £5000, one-third of its yearly budget, if it would place Leakey in a responsible position, and he became an observer on the board of directors.

[25] Joel Ojal, the government official in charge of the museum, and a member of the Associates, directed the chairman of the board to start placing Kenyans on it.

[27] The expedition consisted of three contingents: French, under Camille Arambourg, American, under F. Clark Howell, and Kenyan, led by Richard.

[31] In 1968 Louis and Richard attended a meeting of the Research and Exploration Committee of the National Geographic Society to ask for money for Omo.

[32] Catching Louis by surprise, Richard asked the committee to divert the $25,000 intended for Omo to new excavations to be conducted under his leadership at Koobi Fora.

[33] The curator, Robert Carcasson, resigned in protest,[32] and Leakey was left with the museum at his command, which he, like Louis before him, used as a base of operations.

[32] In the first expedition to Allia Bay on Lake Turkana, where the Koobi Fora camp came to be located, Leakey hired primarily young researchers.

In contrast to his father, Richard ran a disciplined and tidy camp, although, in order to find fossils, he did push the expedition harder than it wished.

[47] With characteristically bold steps Leakey created special, well-armed anti-poaching units that were authorised to shoot poachers on sight.

Impressed by Leakey's transformation of the Kenya Wildlife Service, the World Bank approved grants worth $140 million.

[49] Richard Leakey, President Moi, and the WMCD made the international news headlines when a stockpile of 12 tons of ivory was burned in 1989 in Nairobi National Park.

[51] In 2016, Leakey was named Conservationist of the Year by The Perfect World Foundation and won "The Fragile Rhino" prize at the Elephant Ball in Gothenburg, Sweden.

[52][53] In 1993, a small propeller-driven plane piloted by Richard Leakey crashed, crushing his lower legs, both of which were later amputated.

[54] While in the hospital, Leakey told President Moi, a religious man, not to pray for him, but act on matters pending for the Kenya Wildlife Service.

[56] Around this time the Kenyan government announced that a secret probe had found evidence of corruption and mismanagement in the Kenya Wildlife Service.

[62] To placate the donors, Moi appointed Richard Leakey as Cabinet Secretary and head of the civil service in 1999.

The organisation played a significant role in the saving of the Democratic Republic of Congo's mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park in January 2007 after a rebel uprising threatened to eliminate the highly vulnerable population.

[41] The same year, Leakey was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society[68] and received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

[72] Leakey felt that the viaduct would set an example for the rest of Africa in balancing economic development with environmental protection.

She and her husband, Louis Leakey, unearthed skulls of ape-like early humans, shedding fresh light on our ancestors.

Ten years later he became seriously ill but received a kidney transplant from his brother, Philip, and recovered to full health.