Dr Perez Olindo BSc DSc (1938 – 2024)
Heartfelt condolences on the loss of a great friend, a passionate conservationist, and a Born Free Champion, from Born Free Co-Founder Will Travers OBE.
Dr Perez Olindo BSc DSc (1938 – 2024)
He was an amazing person.
Whenever Dr Perez Olindo, one of the great elder statesmen of Kenyan and global conservation, entered the room, there was an expectant hush. Perez commanded everyone’s attention. He always spoke carefully, considerately, respectfully, and with the weight of many decades’ experience.
I think that’s what being in the same room as Nelson Mandela must have been like.
Now he is gone. We have lost someone very special. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
The first Kenyan Zoology graduate in 1964. The first Kenyan Director of National Parks, appointed in 1966, aged just 27.
I knew Dr Olindo for more than 25 years. He was a fearless advocate for compassionate conservation, a champion for youth empowerment, the winner of the J.Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize (1988), the recipient of the Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the Golden Ark, and named as one of UNEP’s Global 500 Roll of Honour, amongst many accolades.
He was also Born Free’s Honorary Patron (Kenya) for many years – we were lucky to have him. Although increasingly less mobile, he was visited on his farm by our Country Director, Tim Oloo, in the Spring of 2024, and I was honoured to share a few words with him briefly, soon after that.
Dame Virginia McKenna, Born Free’s co-founder, remembers:
“I recall meeting up with Perez when making a documentary, ‘Elsa: The Lioness That Changed The World’ (2011). We sat together at Elsa’s Kopje, the beautiful lodge which lies in the heart of Meru National Park, and discussed our hopes and fears for wildlife. Perez, charming and thoughtful as ever, was full of confidence. Why, I wondered. Because of young people, he said. The young people who care so deeply about nature and wildlife, and will do a far better job of looking after it than we have.”
As usual, Perez was being far too modest. His contribution, not only to the future of Kenya’s wildlife, but to why, today, so many are stepping up to protect nature, cannot be underestimated.
He may be no longer with us but I will always hear his quiet voice of reason and compassion whenever the future of Kenya’s wildlife is being discussed. His spirit constantly encourages us to do more – and we shall.
Safari njema Perez.
Will Travers OBE
Co-Founder
Born Free Foundation