Look before you leap: Leakey urges caution in wildlife programs

By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer

MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. -- The wide diversity of life in the world today is just a fraction of what once existed, and you can't blame humans for most of that extinction, according to Richard Leakey, a world-famous conservationist and scientist.

Most of the now extinct species died out long before humans began to dominate the earth, Leakey said here Tuesday evening. But the pace seems to be picking up.

"The problem is, we're making them more likely," said Leakey, who delivered the keynote address to a gathering of about 200 scientists, environmentalists and land managers from the United States and Africa.

Habitats are disappearing and the world's climate is changing, said Leakey. But people need to get beyond finger pointing.

"It doesn't matter whose fault it is," he said. "It may be nobody's fault. But the fact remains the climate is changing."

Leakey, a Kenyan, is the son of pioneering paleoanthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey, whose discoveries of fossilized remains of human ancestors in Africa greatly advanced knowledge of the origins of humanity.

His own discoveries in that field were important enough that he became director of Kenya's national museum at the age of 25. He later founded the Kenya Wildlife Service and has spent most of his life fostering African wildlife. In the past few years, he has embroiled himself in that country's difficult and sometimes violent politics.

"I've been whipped and lashed and jailed for my country," he said. "My farm has been burned."

His accomplishments are such that Time magazine listed him as one of the 100 greatest minds of the 20th Century, noted Chuck Peterson, curator of the Draper Museum in Cody, Wyo.

The conference, "Beyond the Arch: Community and Conservation in Greater Yellowstone and East Africa," was sponsored by the National Park Service and several academic and research organization.

Leakey urged managers to be cautious about new management schemes and wildlife advocates to be aware of political realities.

Small changes now can result in large and unforeseen changes down the road, he said, and it's always easier for outsiders to tell someone how best to do their job.

As an example, he noted that increased development in some African areas has reduced lion numbers from about 90,000 to about 20,000 over 20 years. They died not because of poaching, but because of diseases like feline distemper spread by domestic animals.

"The threat to ecosystems that are largely natural has never been greater," he said.

Vast differences in culture, nature and economics separate places like Africa's Serengeti and greater Yellowstone.

"I'm not sure we want the Serengeti to be Yellowstone," he said. "And I'm not sure you could get Yellowstone to be Serengeti."

But activities on one continent affect other continents, he added.

American agricultural policies make the practice of raising conservation beef in developing nations economically infeasible, he said.

American subsidies and trade barriers "stop our farmers from getting where they want to be," he said.

Scott McMillion is at scottm@dailychronicle.com

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