60 Quotes by Richard Leakey

The land is not in the least bit fertile and yet the cattle herds grow larger and larger. A cow represents capital investment here.

Whether or not all this came to pass in an East African ditch, I wouldn't like to say. Perhaps it happened in North Africa or further west, but Africa was definitely the place.

The problem is that during the 1980s, a decade of heavy poaching, the elephants retreated to safer areas. And now people have moved into the corridors once used by the elephants.

Let us devote our minds - the one thing we have more of than other apes - and let's secure their future.

Earlier, 100,000 elephants lived in Kenya and we didn't have any noteworthy problem with it. The problem that we have is not that there are now more elephants.

There should be concern expressed at every possible venue to bring pressure on both the African governments and on the international bodies to do something about this. Unless this is stopped, these species could become extinct, and it would be a terrible loss to humanity.

The slaughter of chimpanzees and gorillas, our closest relatives, is absolutely diabolical. I can't imagine that this can go on much longer before these animals are extinct,

Baboons, for example, live on the ground as well as in the trees, where they try to get hold of birds' eggs. What counts is the right balance.

As we sit today, it is important to remember we are talking about the future of a member of our family, not a strange creature that lives in the jungle.