Richard Leakey - Chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service HARDtalk


Richard Leakey - Chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service

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Now on BBC News, it is time for HARDtalk.

:00:00.:00:00.

Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen Sackur.

:00:07.:00:09.

Africa's wildlife is one of the wonders of the natural world,

:00:10.:00:12.

but the fate of the continent's elephants, rhinos and big cats

:00:13.:00:15.

Illegal poaching could see these great species disappear

:00:16.:00:24.

My guest today is Richard Leakey, chairman of the Kenya Wildlife

:00:25.:00:31.

He also happens to be a world-famous palaeontologist whose life story

:00:32.:00:40.

reads like an implausible movie script.

:00:41.:00:42.

The question is - will his fight for Africa's endangered wildlife

:00:43.:00:45.

You know, there is an adage, a saying which goes like this:

:00:46.:01:19.

And yet you have decided to go back, to run and be the chairman

:01:20.:01:24.

of the Kenya Wildlife Service so many years after you did that job

:01:25.:01:27.

Well, I go by a different philosophy.

:01:28.:01:33.

If you do a job and you do it reasonably well, and it gets messed

:01:34.:01:37.

up, if you can go back and tidy it up again, why not?

:01:38.:01:41.

I mean, get it back to what you wanted.

:01:42.:01:43.

I think wildlife in Kenya isn't in very good shape at the moment

:01:44.:01:47.

but I don't think it is rocket science to get it right.

:01:48.:01:50.

And when the President of the Republic asked me "go back,"

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I said, "well, I'll try it for three years, yes,

:01:54.:02:00.

You took over in the late '80s when poaching was at a pitch

:02:01.:02:07.

and the elephant population was going down, and there

:02:08.:02:10.

You took drastic measures, militarised the ranger service

:02:11.:02:14.

It appeared you had got on top of the problem.

:02:15.:02:21.

I think what went wrong is that to head up an organisation

:02:22.:02:25.

like the Kenya Wildlife Service, you have got to have

:02:26.:02:28.

You've got to have the ability to pass over the heads of people

:02:29.:02:32.

who are getting in your way, and you've got to be able to deal

:02:33.:02:36.

And because I had access to President Moi, I was able

:02:37.:02:40.

And I was able to clean up the new organisation,

:02:41.:02:46.

and it was very efficient, very effective, and it worked.

:02:47.:02:49.

Corruption, venality, laziness crept back in,

:02:50.:02:51.

Now it is rampant. But can it be cleaned up?

:02:52.:03:04.

If I get the right new director, which I hope I will do in the next

:03:05.:03:10.

month or two, with a new board I have and with the backing

:03:11.:03:13.

of the government of Kenya, under the President,

:03:14.:03:15.

give me a year and I would think, call me back, it will be fine.

:03:16.:03:19.

I will call you back but let's stick with the present for now.

:03:20.:03:23.

It seems to me you've undertaken an enormous gamble

:03:24.:03:25.

here because you are suggesting to me that the current leadership

:03:26.:03:29.

in Kenya has allowed corruption to slip back in,

:03:30.:03:31.

has allowed the international poaching networks to do

:03:32.:03:33.

What gives you any sort of faith at all that those very same top

:03:34.:03:38.

Everything I've done, I've had backing.

:03:39.:03:41.

And I can call a spade a spade and get away with it.

:03:42.:03:47.

I have every confidence that if I feel the need to encourage

:03:48.:03:54.

the removal of certain people, to put in tough programmes,

:03:55.:03:56.

I'm quite sure of that. Really?

:03:57.:04:05.

Last year, you said, and I'm quoting you,

:04:06.:04:07.

"there is no doubt the government knows who the kingpins

:04:08.:04:10.

Corruption and incompetence have allowed the last great wildlife

:04:11.:04:14.

species to be slaughtered," you said.

:04:15.:04:24.

"No question, there's high-level protection of individuals who engage

:04:25.:04:27.

in the illegal export of elephant ivory."

:04:28.:04:28.

So, are you prepared to name names to President Kenyatta, for example?

:04:29.:04:32.

To President Kenyatta, I will, but not to you.

:04:33.:04:37.

Well, there's no point raising alarms and things of the kind

:04:38.:04:42.

you want me to do when we can deal with it in another way.

:04:43.:04:45.

Our biggest problem, Stephen, is corruption in the courts,

:04:46.:04:48.

corruption in law enforcement, corruption in prosecution.

:04:49.:04:50.

And this is a situation that goes right across the board in Kenya.

:04:51.:04:53.

The new chief justice has done a lot to clean it up.

:04:54.:04:58.

I think with a new brood of people coming in,

:04:59.:05:01.

younger people, and with a president not interfering himself,

:05:02.:05:03.

I don't know why it hasn't been done sooner.

:05:04.:05:09.

But are you going to put your own integrity on the line here?

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I mean, are you prepared to walk away if, over the next few months,

:05:14.:05:17.

you don't get the right sort of backing, the right sort

:05:18.:05:20.

Well, let me put it to you this way, when the President persuaded me

:05:21.:05:26.

to take this position, I said to him he was a very

:05:27.:05:29.

courageous man, because of course I will walk away if I can't do it.

:05:30.:05:33.

If I face up to an intolerable situation, as I've done several

:05:34.:05:36.

times in my history, I will state the problem and walk

:05:37.:05:39.

We are talking about "the" problem but we need to be specific.

:05:40.:05:48.

I've seen figures suggesting that anything from hundreds to more

:05:49.:05:51.

than 1,000 elephants are being poached in Kenya every year.

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What is the actual poaching problem, the scale of it, today?

:05:55.:05:57.

When I made that statement you alluded to earlier on,

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last year, I think we were losing close to 1,000 elephants a year.

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And this is in a population of Kenyan elephants of what,

:06:13.:06:15.

Between 30,000 and 35,000, I would think.

:06:16.:06:25.

This year alone, to the month of September, we've lost under 400.

:06:26.:06:28.

The situation has already changed dramatically.

:06:29.:06:30.

And in the last few months we are talking about tens.

:06:31.:06:33.

We are getting back very, very quickly.

:06:34.:06:35.

What was wrong, Stephen, is that the wardens

:06:36.:06:37.

were demoralised, the rangers were demoralised, the vehicles

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I was asking one senior warden why he wasn't getting cattle out

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He showed me his vehicales, he had three Land Rovers

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This can be put right and it is going to be put right

:06:53.:06:56.

You are, last time around when you took over the ranger

:06:57.:07:00.

service as head of the Wildlife Service, you armed them,

:07:01.:07:03.

you trained them, and there were allegations that they used

:07:04.:07:06.

force sometimes beyond the call of duty.

:07:07.:07:08.

I mean, many, many poachers and alleged poachers were shot dead

:07:09.:07:11.

Is that the way you're gonna do it again?

:07:12.:07:21.

I didn't do it then and I wouldn't do it now.

:07:22.:07:24.

When I went in the first time, I made it very clear that

:07:25.:07:28.

if poachers continued to shoot at my men, they were now armed

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and they would shoot back, and in the first few months we did

:07:32.:07:34.

lose a couple of our men, and we lost about 15-20 poachers.

:07:35.:07:38.

Within the first few months, by 1990, I can't remember the dates,

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but it was about then, it had stopped.

:07:42.:07:47.

But will your men, you know, in your new regime, will they shoot

:07:48.:07:51.

Stephen, if they are fired upon, they will shoot back.

:07:52.:07:55.

Whether they shoot to kill or shoot to immobilise,

:07:56.:07:58.

But there is no point running away from people who are absolutely

:07:59.:08:12.

destroying the natural heritage of our country.

:08:13.:08:14.

In the end, this isn't just about a supply problem, is it?

:08:15.:08:17.

You have to, as part of your overall package solutions to the poaching

:08:18.:08:23.

problem, you have to try to stop China and other countries so eager

:08:24.:08:26.

to import ivory and the rhino horn for their domestic consumption.

:08:27.:08:29.

At the moment, I think Kenya is in more difficulty

:08:30.:08:34.

by being a transit station for ivory from elsewhere in Africa.

:08:35.:08:37.

The number of our elephants killed is relatively small.

:08:38.:08:39.

In neighbouring Tanzania they have a terrible problem.

:08:40.:08:41.

We have had the minister responsible on the programme and I put him

:08:42.:08:47.

all of the allegations about corruption inside his country,

:08:48.:08:49.

with the police and judiciary, all allegedly involved

:08:50.:08:52.

What we've discovered is that ivory has become a commodity

:08:53.:09:03.

and the dealings in ivory have been infiltrated by criminal syndicates.

:09:04.:09:06.

As they have for child export and as they have with drugs

:09:07.:09:09.

And the people who are now controlling it are criminals outside

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Kenya, often with huge sources of money.

:09:14.:09:15.

They've bought the judges, they've bought the prosecutors,

:09:16.:09:17.

they've bought the police, they've bought the authorities.

:09:18.:09:19.

Now, at this stage, my charge is to stop the killing

:09:20.:09:22.

I must work very closely with others to stop Kenya being used

:09:23.:09:32.

I think we can do that given the connections that I have

:09:33.:09:39.

Well, let me put it bluntly, do you think neighbouring

:09:40.:09:43.

governments have the right level of commitment?

:09:44.:09:45.

But if they can't export their ivory through Kenya, and I think

:09:46.:09:52.

that we can control, then I think the situation

:09:53.:09:54.

You know, it's talked about that within a couple of generations,

:09:55.:09:59.

if the scale of poaching continues on the scale it's been for the last

:10:00.:10:03.

five years, we could see the African elephant disappear,

:10:04.:10:06.

I think at the moment, no, for elephants.

:10:07.:10:13.

I think they'll disappear from some countries.

:10:14.:10:15.

I think black rhino may in some countries.

:10:16.:10:17.

But there is still a lot of elephant.

:10:18.:10:19.

When I started KWS, we were 17,000 elephants.

:10:20.:10:22.

We are now 35,000, despite a lot of poaching.

:10:23.:10:25.

We counted our ivory the other day and we found that we had 137 tons,

:10:26.:10:29.

But there are still no examples I have seen going around

:10:30.:10:39.

in the parks where elephants hear a vehicle and run away.

:10:40.:10:44.

They're still very, very placid, which is a very good sign

:10:45.:10:46.

A final thought on ivory, then I want to move on.

:10:47.:10:57.

You've just said we have 130 tons of ivory, worth a vast amount

:10:58.:11:00.

of money, in your Kenyan government's stores.

:11:01.:11:02.

One of the arguments about the ivory trade is that it's very confusing

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and very easy for the traders to continue their work

:11:07.:11:08.

because there is this so-called legal ivory,

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that is, historic ivory, as well as the poached,

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The best way of ending that confusion is to destroy your

:11:14.:11:19.

If you remember, we destroyed a lot of ivory when I started KWS.

:11:20.:11:30.

The ivory we have today, far more than I expected to find

:11:31.:11:34.

It has been stated to be the case by the President,

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supported by the Cabinet and the Government, and at the right

:11:41.:11:44.

time, the full 137 tons will be put to the torch and destroyed to ash.

:11:45.:11:47.

That is an absolute guarantee? Absolute promise.

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Very good. Alright.

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Because your career, your life story, is extraordinary.

:11:57.:12:01.

You were born to famous palaeontologist parents in Kenya.

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And this has always interested people, whether you feel completely

:12:04.:12:11.

African in the way that, you know, black Kenyans feel completely

:12:12.:12:14.

committed to their country and their continent.

:12:15.:12:16.

Just try and explain to me how you have always seen yourself?

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I can't explain why it is but the only people who don't

:12:27.:12:30.

think I am an African are usually white people.

:12:31.:12:32.

I've been totally accepted as an African, and as a Kenyan.

:12:33.:12:35.

As you well know, I've got into politics, I've got

:12:36.:12:38.

into all sorts of situations, which you couldn't do

:12:39.:12:40.

Do you think in English or in Swahili?

:12:41.:12:48.

Absolutely? Absolutely.

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And if we think about the extroadinary things you have

:12:54.:12:55.

done in palaeontology, and I am thinking now

:12:56.:12:58.

about the discovery of the skull of the boy which told us so much

:12:59.:13:02.

new about the origins of homo sapiens, you always made a point

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of saying that for you the discovery mattered partly for ideological

:13:06.:13:08.

reasons because it was a way of explaining to fellow Kenyans,

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fellow Africans, that, in your view, evolution was now proven,

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that Darwin was right, and that they should understand,

:13:14.:13:18.

Africans should all understand that the notions of God,

:13:19.:13:20.

of tribal myth, couldn't trump science and rationality.

:13:21.:13:30.

You're opening a Pandora's box but let me comment on some

:13:31.:13:33.

I think the Turkana Boy, not the skeleton, which was found

:13:34.:13:41.

in 1984, went a long way to persuading not just Africans,

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but Europeans and Chinese and Americans, who are much more

:13:45.:13:47.

in the camp of fundamentalism than Kenyans are, that

:13:48.:13:50.

here was evidence that at least 1.5 million years ago there was a full

:13:51.:13:54.

skeleton that you or anyone who wasn't a specialist

:13:55.:13:56.

It was embedded in rock that could clearly be dated.

:13:57.:14:08.

You know, in Turkana now, for the second year they've had

:14:09.:14:11.

a festival with close to 5,000 Turkana and other Kenyans attending.

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The festival is entitled: "Welcome home, the cradle of humanity."

:14:15.:14:16.

Now this is one of the greatest assets Turkana considers it has,

:14:17.:14:20.

and I think Africa is beginning to recognise that our

:14:21.:14:22.

I think we're beginning to realise that blue-eyed guys like you,

:14:23.:14:27.

and Scandinavians and people from all over the world,

:14:28.:14:29.

actually are part of the African diaspora.

:14:30.:14:31.

But you want the lesson to go even further.

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You said, it is important to educate boys

:14:54.:14:55.

and girls in the developing world that their destiny belongs to them.

:14:56.:15:06.

It won't be decided by a god, it will be decided by their knowledge

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and their commitment to build the planet.

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Do you feel that approach to life, sort of a philosophy,

:15:14.:15:15.

a rational philosophy of life, is making inroads

:15:16.:15:18.

I think it's slow but it's coming and we are beginning to recognise

:15:19.:15:26.

that our problems with disease, HIV, ebola, crop pathogens,

:15:27.:15:29.

these have been caused by new things that have evolved and changed.

:15:30.:15:41.

And the only science is going to deal with them.

:15:42.:15:46.

We have our young scientists, we have our laboratories,

:15:47.:15:51.

and we recognise this is the way to tackle the future rather

:15:52.:15:54.

than the relying on aid from other countries.

:15:55.:15:56.

We are a long way from where I want to be, but I think it is coming

:15:57.:16:00.

And I think more and more young people are beginning to recognise

:16:01.:16:05.

that we cannot expect the British for Americans or Chinese

:16:06.:16:08.

to constantly bail us out of our own problems.

:16:09.:16:11.

I would not want to be temporary second these challenges are easy. --

:16:12.:16:19.

would not want to pretend for a second that these challenges.

:16:20.:16:21.

It comes down to this very personal issue of the degree

:16:22.:16:24.

to which you are working from the inside or the degree

:16:25.:16:27.

to which for some Kenyans sometimes see you like an outsider.

:16:28.:16:30.

I have seen no sign of that, either favourable or negative.

:16:31.:16:33.

You have talked yourself to the degree to which some

:16:34.:16:37.

of the things you have said, particularly about the wildlife

:16:38.:16:40.

issue in Kenya, you have had people out to kill you.

:16:41.:16:43.

If you pick on criminals in England, you don't think

:16:44.:16:45.

they are looking for ways to get even with you?

:16:46.:16:48.

If you're fingered and you lose your career or your source of money,

:16:49.:16:53.

You're not unpopular because you're white,

:16:54.:16:56.

you're unpopular because you pulled the plug on their scheme.

:16:57.:16:59.

It would happen here just as easily. I haven't been picked on as somebody

:17:00.:17:09.

who is white. I have been picked on as

:17:10.:17:10.

an individual who said, enough is enough, stop stealing

:17:11.:17:13.

the resources of the country. People do not know your

:17:14.:17:15.

incredible life story. They will not know that you lost

:17:16.:17:18.

both of your legs in a plane Your light aircraft,

:17:19.:17:21.

the engine cut out. You have always said you believe

:17:22.:17:27.

that plane was sabotaged. I have no proof that it was not

:17:28.:17:31.

and I have no proof it was. I have always said, what happened

:17:32.:17:37.

happened and we need I still have reasonable grounds

:17:38.:17:39.

for thinking it was interfered with. But you, in your own mind, think you

:17:40.:17:43.

know who is responsible? And remember, my legs could have

:17:44.:17:52.

lost me, and they didn't. The point remains, I suppose,

:17:53.:18:12.

bringing it back to your life's work at the moment, which is all

:18:13.:18:19.

about conservation and wildlife, there are people working alongside

:18:20.:18:22.

you, a lot of Kenyans You have warned them that they, too,

:18:23.:18:24.

must expect to face real It is reality, but it

:18:25.:18:31.

should not be overstated. I think you can probably do far more

:18:32.:18:39.

now than you could, 30 years ago. You still say there are a lot

:18:40.:18:46.

of rotten people at the very heart Do you not think there are a lot

:18:47.:18:50.

of people in America or Canada, or France, or even -

:18:51.:19:06.

I don't know about this sacred There are a lot of people

:19:07.:19:10.

in public life everywhere. At our situation of development,

:19:11.:19:13.

some of them would use rougher But we cannot sit back,

:19:14.:19:16.

we have to fight back. Listen, do you realise how few

:19:17.:19:20.

terrorist attacks we have had compareds to how many

:19:21.:19:24.

there might have been? Kenya is really doing its utmost

:19:25.:19:26.

to prevent the fundamentalist You have no idea what efforts have

:19:27.:19:29.

been made to sustain a free That is an optimistic

:19:30.:19:34.

message to take away. Just one other thing I want to put

:19:35.:19:40.

to you before we finish - which is not the enemies you might

:19:41.:19:44.

have made among those nefarious to smill make a living out

:19:45.:19:47.

of poaching, you have at least made enemies, within the conservation

:19:48.:19:59.

movement for somethng that has been discussed of late inside Kenya

:20:00.:20:03.

and in Tanzania as well, which is the future

:20:04.:20:05.

of the Serengeti, and the idea that built across this wonderful national

:20:06.:20:08.

park, because resources need to travel from central

:20:09.:20:12.

Africa to the coast. You support the construction

:20:13.:20:17.

of an elevated highway, right across one

:20:18.:20:19.

of the most precious pieces of wild territory

:20:20.:20:21.

in all of Africa. Because if you are going to develop

:20:22.:20:23.

Tanzania the way it is developing, with a new port going in,

:20:24.:20:35.

one of the biggest ports in East Africa, if you are going

:20:36.:20:39.

to develop seaports on Lake Victoria, huge ones,

:20:40.:20:41.

and have cities of several million people, how will you get

:20:42.:20:44.

the produce out? If we take the initiative

:20:45.:20:49.

and say let's put it up, so the animals can

:20:50.:20:52.

go underneath, we can The point is you have to build that.

:20:53.:21:04.

There is the resources required, the expense, and also the disruption.

:21:05.:21:05.

I have been lucky enough to see the wildebeest migration...

:21:06.:21:08.

All of the experts, one says the cost of this alone will be ten

:21:09.:21:14.

It will be so disruptive, we cannot let it happen.

:21:15.:21:20.

If it costs 50 times or 100 times, it has to be done

:21:21.:21:24.

to save the Serengeti's ecosystem, which affects Tanzanias,

:21:25.:21:34.

-- Tanzanians, Kenyans, and ultimately is our global

:21:35.:21:36.

You cannot allow a parliament in Tanzania ten years from now

:21:37.:21:39.

to say that economically we have to do it.

:21:40.:21:42.

We have two start the process of winning friends, now.

:21:43.:21:45.

There are miles of highways in America, in Europe.

:21:46.:21:47.

What is wrong with putting a road up, if the animals can

:21:48.:21:55.

Most of the conservationists, most of the people involved

:21:56.:22:02.

in engineering projects across the world, have looked

:22:03.:22:04.

Everything that has worked in the world, that has been

:22:05.:22:09.

ambitious and dramatic, there have been thousands

:22:10.:22:11.

I say, get off your rear end, we will lose

:22:12.:22:22.

We must find out how we can sustain the ecology,

:22:23.:22:29.

the wildlife migration, the integrity of the park,

:22:30.:22:31.

highway, and provide effective, efficient transportation.

:22:32.:22:41.

And this makes me smile even thinking about it.

:22:42.:22:48.

There are plans afoot, led by Angelina Jolie,

:22:49.:22:51.

Her husband, Brad Pitt, is mooted to be the young Richard

:22:52.:22:58.

If somebody could produce a film in which people of reputation

:22:59.:23:09.

starred and if the Richard Leakey played by Brad Pitt said,

:23:10.:23:13.

"enough killing of elephants, Chinese must not use ivory,"

:23:14.:23:17.

and Angelina Jolie said the same thing, that has far more impact

:23:18.:23:20.

than if Richard Leakey were to say the same thing.

:23:21.:23:24.

It is based on your book, Wildlife Wars.

:23:25.:23:30.

Is this a war to save Africa's wildlife that you believe

:23:31.:23:33.

We have to save the planet, not just in East Africa,

:23:34.:23:38.

but we have got to stop the killing of the rhino,

:23:39.:23:41.

And we have to have something that everybody cares

:23:42.:23:45.

We need to have a heritage that everybody cares for.

:23:46.:23:50.

If you can kill the market, and China is a big market,

:23:51.:23:55.

and I think powerful Hollywood films could change a lot of attitudes.

:23:56.:23:59.

You were talking about the market. That is a way to do it. Burning

:24:00.:24:03.

ivory is another way. We might not succeed,

:24:04.:24:04.

but if we did not think we might,

:24:05.:24:10.

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