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| Wildlife Wars | 
| Author: Richard E. Leakey
Publisher: Pan Books
Category: Book
Buy Used: $32.86
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 2808059
Media: Paperback
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1
ISBN: 0330372408
Dewey Decimal Number: 590
EAN: 9780330372404
ASIN: 0330372408
Publication Date: August 9, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Fascinating tale of the fight to save Kenya's elephants. September 19, 2005
Anyone who has ever been to Kenya's extraordinary game parks to see the elephants, or dreamed of doing so, will be fascinated by this story of how these parks came to be the refuges they are and not the corrals for government-sanctioned poaching that they were. When paleontologist Richard Leakey took over the Department of Wildlife and Conservation in 1989, rampant corruption, theft, absenteeism, and a don't-care attitude were hallmarks within the department.
As Leakey tells us here, the Kenyan government lacked a real commitment to conservation, and the burgeoning population exerted pressure on national park borders, clearing land for farming and threatening wildlife, unimpeded. Poaching, patronage, a general ripoff mentality, and collusion between park rangers, politicians, blackmarketeers, and smugglers, were so interconnected and seemingly so ineradicable that the department resembled a many-headed hydra.
Tribal rivalries within Kenya, a porous border through which Somalian thieves made forays, and a lack of agreement between Kenya and neighboring African countries about the best way to conserve animals made this one of the most daunting management challenges imaginable.
In prose that is as direct and to the point (and sometimes as self-congratulatory) as he is, Leakey tells how he set up and managed a multimilliondollar corporation in a country in which everyone wants a piece of the pie, usually under the table.
As Leakey tells of cleaning up the department and conserving the elephants, the reader also learns about the economics of the ivory trade, the tug-of-war between immediate political realities and long-term goals, the role of the World Bank in African development, and the politicking involved in deciding what is an endangered species under the U.N.'s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). It's a fascinating tale, equally intriguing to the lover of wildlife, the student of management, and the East African history buff. Mary Whipple
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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