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Leakey’s Battle to Save African Elephants Featured in Newsweek

Newsweek

Stony Brook’s Richard Leakey and his decades-long battle to preserve African wildlife are prominently featured in the September 5 issue of Newsweek in a story entitled “Leakey’s Last Stand: The Final Battle of Africa’s Elephant King.”

Newsweek cover
Cover of the Sept. 5, 2014 edition of Newsweek features Stony Brook’s Richard Leakey.

The Leakey profile is the cover story of Newsweek‘s European edition and is headlined on the cover of the US edition. Reporter Graham Boynton tells the story of Leakey’s ongoing struggle against the poaching and corruption that is threatening the very survival of the world’s most majestic land mammal.

“Best known for digging up skulls that shed light on humanity’s origins, Leakey is back to pursuing the other great passion of his life – saving elephants and other endangered species threatened by poachers,” Boynton writes. The full story can be read here

Richard E. Leakey, Ph.D., is director of  The Turkana Basin Institute (TBI), a privately funded, non-profit initiative, founded by Leakey and Stony Brook University. It is a collaborative, international, multi-disciplinary enterprise that seeks to facilitate fieldwork within the Lake Turkana Basin by providing logistical support to researchers. 

Leakey is also Professor in the Department of Anthropology and a world-renowned conservationist and paleoanthropologist, who has made some of the most important fossil discoveries of the last 100 years. A former Director of Kenya’s National Museums and the Kenyan Wildlife Service, Dr. Leakey has been a leader in the fight to preserve culture and wildlife in Africa and other locations.

He has authored more than 100 scientific journals and books, including The Sixth Extinction, Origins, Origins Reconsidered, The Origin of Humankind, and One Life. He has presented several television programs, including the five-part Making of Mankind and NBC’s Earthwatch. His latest book is Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa’s Treasures.

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