Jonathan Leakey

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Jonathan Harry Erskine Leakey (born November 4, 1940 ) is the first son of Louis and Mary Leakey . In October 1960, he found the fossil remains of a 10-year-old child of a new prehistoric species that his father later named Homo habilis . The fossil OH 7 is also known under the nickname "Jonnys Child". His younger brother Richard is considered one of the most important paleoanthropologists of our time and is known in Kenya as an environmentalist.

Jonathan Leakey never worked in the field of human research. He runs the trading company Jonathan Leakey Ltd. in Nakuru (Kenya) . who u. a. Sells snake venom, which is partly obtained from animals living in the wild and partly from animals from a snake farm belonging to it. He also supported US animal dealers in exporting live reptiles from Kenya, which earned him the reputation of a "snake hunter". According to online publications, it was the main exporter of wild-caught chameleons for the US market (the Chamaeleon jacksonii ) until it was banned by the Kenyan government in 1981 .

In an online publication by The East African Standard on July 14, 2004, there was criticism that Jonathan Leakey, thanks to his family ties to Richard Leakey , the former head of the Kenya Wildlife Service , had sole right to the bark used as a medicinal product to export a tree of the genus Prunus ( Prunus africana ) called mweri or muiri in the Kikuyu language - 300 to 400 t per year. Similarly, the Nairobi online edition of The Daily Nation reported on June 15, 2000 that Jonathan Leakey, together with the French company Groupe Fournier, were the exclusive beneficiaries of this drug, also made into tablets, while the local population went empty-handed the tree's existence would be endangered. Similarly critical to Kenya's Environment Minister Newton Kulundu expressed in June 2004 in the New African to scandal surrounding the Mweri tree and was cited: "It is no secret that Jonathan Leakey over the past 20 years, the products of Prunus africana on the European market exported. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Overview of the distribution of Prunus africana in Kenya and the trade volume 1999–2003. On: cites.org , as of 2008
personal data
SURNAME Leakey, Jonathan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leakey, Jonathan Harry Erskine (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Kenyan-British entrepreneur, discoverer of Homo habilis
DATE OF BIRTH November 4th 1940