Leakey: The Trials Of Building Kenya's National Museums

But Leakey’s tenure has not been without controversy. This past winter, amidst an uproar over public comments he made criticizing the African nation’s government for its lack of effectiveness in preventing elephant poaching, and a press campaign against Leakey personally,. Kenya’s vice president called for Leakey’s resignation. Now,just three months later, Leakey has been promoted to Director of Wildlife in Kenya (see story, page 1), formally responsible for handling the growing problem of wildlife conservation in the country. In this interview, conducted earlier this year in San Francisco by freelance science writer Virginia Morell, Leakey discusses the political trials—and successes—he has encountered during his 20 years as director of the National Museums. Q You joined the National Museums of Kenya in 1968. What had been the history of the institution up to that point? A In 1968, the National Museum was some 40 years. old. At that time it employed about 20 people, who were primarily concerned, with maintaining the research collections of mammals, birds, insects and reptiles. There was a small exhibits program and a small educational program, but archeology and paleontology, including human paleontology, were separate from the museum. They came under the Center for Prehistory and Paleontology, which was funded externally and was controlled entirely by my father, Louis. At that time, none of the archeology sites or monuments, such as Olorgesailie [a site with hundreds of million-year-old handaxes] or Fort Jesus [a 16th-century Portugese fort on Kenya’s coast] or Gedi [the ruins of a 12th-century Arab town], that were open to the public were under the museum; they were all part of the Kenyan National Parks. Q Did you have definite plans about how you wanted the museum to develop? A My plan, and the plan of the board at my urging, was to make a museum fashioned to an extent on the Smithsonian, so we would have an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary natural and earth sciences complex, where we would house and rnamtain the biological reference collections of the country. In addition to that, we planned to build upon those research departments, developing applied research that would’ have more direct bearing on the development of the country—I’m thinking in particular of the medical aspects of entomology, appropriate agriculture, the whole problem of mammals as vectors in the spread of virus and disease. So there was always a commitment to make these not just departments of a basic natural history museum, but to make them active in contemporary science, so that they would generate funds. It was in that connection that the Institute of Primate Research was shifted from being a basically behavioral complex to a more medical program, where it would be a facility to apply money to some specific public health problems. Q How did you begin to address these objectives? A The first thing I had to do wast ry to find ways to make the government give us more money. I convinced Perez Olindo, who had just been appointed as the first Mrican director of the Kenyan National Parks, and who was a friend from several years before, that the Parks had no business looking after things like Fort Jesus, Gedi, and Olorgesailie. Shortly after I had taken up my position, in January 1969, all the archaeological and paleontological sites that had been under the National Parks were transferred to the museum. With these came subsidies from the government to run them. That way we started to develop our own capacity to increase grants from the government. Furthermore, because Fort Jesus and Gedi were at the coast, they received quite a lot of visitors, and we began to significantly increase our revenues from the addition of those sites. Q What role did your research into human origins play in helping to develop the museum? A Once the departments of paleontology and archeology came under the museum in 1970, we put a ban on the export of [fossil] material. Foreign expeditions were obliged to analyze their collections in Kenya. This put a premium on developing a casting program [producing highquality fiberglass casts of fossils to sell or exchange with other research institutions and universities], and put a lot of pressure on us to develop adequate facilities for the storage of fossils. Several temporary buildings were put up to properly house these collections. In 1974, we initiated the construction of the major building that presently houses archeology and paleontology, which is the Louis Leakey Memorial. We were then able to demonstrate that if the [fossil] material had to be studied [in Kenya], then the museum had to have proper facilities, proper libraries, and proper photographic equipment. And we were able to generate a lot of funding for various associated programs around the prehistory program. We also were able to use the new facility as a center for excellence and to generate some pride in what the museum had. That, in turn, had a spin-off effect in raising money for other departments in the museum. Q Raising additional funds had to have been a key to your strategy for the museums. A Yes. In 1968, the budget of our museum was about $45,000 a year— about 90% of this came from a [Kenyan] government grant, and 8% or 9% was provided by the Nairobi City Council. Twenty years later, the budget of the museum is about $3 million. The Kenyan government provides about 24% of that budget. The remainder comes from revenues raised by the museum. We run shops, sell things like [fossil] casts, have catering programs, and we get donations. We use fees from lectures to fund specific research activities. A lot of the lecture money is also used to support students abroad— $56,000 a year goes to students currently being trained in America. Q This emphasis on educating and employing native Kenyans was also an initiative of yours, wasn’t it? A When I joined the staff, there were no Africans in positions higher than a ticket clerk at the museum, and funds to promote education were extremely short. But by 1970 apolicy decision was taken on my recommendation that said that all departments at the museum should aim to be run by Kenyans with Ph.D. ‘s, in whatever time was necessary to locate and train them. Q How did you get this started? A By this stage, we had sent several people on trips to America for training in exhibits, casting, and archival work. We had brought in professionals in administration and accounting, had recruited a young man with a university degree to study small mammals, and were looking to train archeologists. We recruited one, John Onyango-Abuje, who was then at the University of Malcere, and sent him to the University of California, Berkeley, to complete his Ph.D. Q What is the situation today? A We have five or six people who either have or are about to get their Ph.D.’s in archeology; one in anthropology; two in vertebrate paleontology; two in geology; one in palynology [the study of fossil pollen]. They are all on our staff. Then we have a Ph.D. running our department of ornithol ogy, another one running entomology, and six other candidates in Ph.D. programs in the animal sciences. The botany department has three Kenyans doing higher degrees, and the Institute of Primate Research has a dozen or more Ph.D.’s. And we have a very substantial body of very qualified Ph.D. level research scientists spread through the system. Today there are no areas that are of any scientific nature that are not in the hands of Kenyan citizens. Q Another of your major accomplishments has been the establishment of a network of regional museums. How did this get started? A The first one was established at Kitale [a town northwest of Lake Victoria] in 1970, through a bequest from a man by the name of Stoneham, who had run a private museum in the colonial days. Q When you started to expand the museum, were there any models in Africa for what you hoped to achieve? A The Zimbabwean museums had always been good natural history museums, and they still are. But the majority of the national museum programs m the rest of Africa fall under the ministry of culture. And they are oriented toward exhibits and storage, with no research at all, and run on appallingly small budgets, rather like the Kenya museum was in 1968. Q How large is the network of National Museums today? A Since 1968, our staff has grown from 23 to 640. We have the big museum in Nairobi, and the Primate Center. Then we have Kitale, Kisumu, Meru, Mombassa, Malindi, Lamu, plus a number of prehistoric, archeological, and monumental sites. Incidentally, these regional muscums help us in the recruitment efforts. Many of them are designed for public school children who don’t get comprehensive teaching aids in the areas of biology, history, and culture. So the regional museums are perceived as sort of community centers, cultural centers where teachers can bring students for films, lectures, and actual hands-on experiences, handling fossils and archeological material. Q Wildlife problems, such as elephant poaching, are headline news in Kenya these days. Was conservation ever an issue that was addressed by the museum? A We have experts on various groups of animal life—we can do bird identification; we can offer advice on endangered species; we can deal with a lot of the minutiae of conservation, and provide services to ecologists. We have never been directly involved in conservation management, which is the function of the National Parks, although there is strong pressure on us to recognize that a lot of the historical sites that we protect are in fact unique—in that by their very protection they have preserved plant communities and birds and insects that are rare or endangered. And today we are involved in some quite extensive monitoring of forests, endangered habitats, and wetlands. We are also increasingly involved in things like a program in genetics, where we are beginning to monitor and develop baseline data on the genetic makeup of various populations of wild dogs in different parts of the country. So if ever they need to be translocated for a breeding program at least we’ve got some information about their genetic diversity. Q So as Director of the Museum, you’ve played a formal role in addressing national conservation problems? A Since I’ve been director, I have always had a voice. For instance, some years ago, we led the crusade to have the aloe plant set aside as an endangered species in Kenya, and we got a presidential ban on the trade in aloes. We’ve had influence on a number of protective measures. And it’s always been a role of the museum to speak out where it’s necessary to speak out on endangered species. Q And yet, statements you made last September on the topic of elephant poaching have appeared to upset some of your superiors in the government. Specifically, you charged that Kenya’s Minister of Tourism and Wildlife, George Muhoho, was not seriously addressing the problem of elephant poaching. A Yes. But these statements were made not as Director of the Museum, but as chairman of the East African Wildlife Society, which I have been since 1984, and which my father founded some 40 years ago. Q So were these antipoaching comments political statements, or an attempt to draw attention to how serious the problem had become? A Well, the Wildlife Society is a lobby organization. Its function is to raise funds for conservation and to raise public consciousness about conservation. The purpose of the statements that I made to the press was to raise public consciousness about the desperate situation, and in so doing to perhaps take some action that is politically difficult to take—to crack down on corrupt elements within the system. And so, it was a consciousness-raising exercise that perforce had a political connotation. Q Yet following your anti- poaching remarks Kenya’s vice president, Josephat Karanja, called for your resignation as Director of the National Museums. Do you know why? A Well, of course, one would have to say that there is no basis upon which I can confirm that there was a connection between the actions at the museum and my statement on poaching. Nevertheless, it is clear that I am perceived to have such a loud voice because I enjoy a position in the government system that is fairly senior. And in a country like Kenya, if you are head of a national organization that is respected and has clout and you speak, they will listen. If you are simply an ordinary member of the citizenry, chances are nobody will hear you. I think there was a sense that I abused or misused what would be normally considered a privileged position of stature, because I was the occupant of the office of chief executive of Kenya's National Museums. Q What, exactly, was said? A I was informed that it was inappropriate for an employee of government to publicly criticize the same government on matters of policy. The implication of the criticism I received was that my stepping down would be one option that would be positively considered at a certain level. This was by no means the attitude of the Kenya government as a whole. It was the attitude of one or two individuals who had sent this message to me. Q And how did you respond? A My reply was a smile. I naturally felt that because I had not spoken out as a government official, but as a private citizen enjoying the privilege of being chairman of a lobby organization with a fairly large constituency, that it was an unrelated issue. I didn’t see how I could be asked to abrogate my responsibilities as chairman when they were no way m conflict with my job as Director of the Museum. Q Yet several months later, there were apparently some efforts by the certain individuals in the government to make your position as the museum’s director unpleasant. Can you describe what happened? A I don’t think there was any evidence that it was the government that tried to make things unpleasant for me. I think there was a press campaign, where one of the Kenya newspapers printed baseless allegations built on anonymous information suggesting that things weren’t right at the museum. And it was an attempt to create the impression in the mind of the. public that there were some real problems going on at the museum that were being covered up by me. The press campaign was to a large extent designed to irritate and embarrass me personally and my board. Q The result of this press campaign was a move by the government to replace the board of trustees of the museum—including the board’s chairman. How did this come about? A I would be unable to give you exact details of the causes and reasons for certain events that took place, because I don’t know them. But certainly there was an impression being developed in the press that things were not right at the museum, and under those circumstances, it seemed the ministry overseeing the museum felt obliged to effect changes that might be able to address these problems. Given the facts that I was satisfied myself that the accusations against the museum in the press were baseless and that I had never been informed or consulted about the board being replaced, I was surprised to find an announcement in the press that a new board and a new chairman had been appointed. Q What was your response? A I made it clear that if the new board did meet, it would be obliged to consider my intended resignation as the first order of business. Q Did the ministry ever talk to you directly? A I had a number of extended conversations with officials within the ministry on the level of civil servants. And all expressed deep concern that I should not proceed with my resignation, given the complexity of the museum and the needs that. it had for a director who had the many connections and contacts and experience that I had. There were considerable misgivings on the part of the permanent secretary and others that I should even contemplate withdrawal over this issue. Q Were you disappointed to see the way the government handled this affair, relying on press allegations rather than talking to your personally? A I was surprised. Yes, I was concerned. But I was more than concerned on a personal level. I was concerned that the organization can’t be run on that basis—the basis of not taking the chief executive into your confidence, of allowing petty politics to interfere. Either you consult the chief executive as an adviser on matters of policy, and the setting of a new board is a matter of substance and policy, or if you feel you can’t consult the chief executive, then the assumption must be that you have another agenda and you don’t have faith in the chief executive’s advice. And having so many things to do in my own life, I felt that it was perhaps easier for me to clear the way for them to proceed without me. Q What happened next? The new board was disbanded. You withdrew your resignation...? A I learned after reading the newspaper—there was a veiy short announcement in all the Kenyan press and on the radio, saying that the vice president had reconsidered the appointments of the new board and new chairman, and that with immediate effect, the old board and the old chairman had resumed the running of the museums until further notice. I inquired by telephone as to whether this newspaper report was authentic. On being informed that indeed it was, I then saw no reason not to write to the permanent secretary and withdraw my resignation. Q Looking back on it now, are these political problems a factor that other people setting up similar museums in developing countries might also run into? A There is no question that the successful development of scientific institutions in developing countries requires strong political support. Whoever is the leader of those institutions has to have the capacity and the facility to develop and maintain political interest and goodwill within the country. There are always going to be moments when people who may have at other times felt threatened by the political support the institution enjoyed gain a position of influence. Under those circumstances, you have a new political formula to deal with. The challenge for leaders of these institutions is to anticipate and accommodate those situations.

Leakey: The Trials Of Building Kenya's National Museums

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Virginia Morell

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May 1989

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