Kenya Lake Victoria Waterkeeper Leonard Akwany Honored with 2019 African Ranger Award
By: Waterkeeper Alliance
Leonard Akwany, the Kenya Lake Victoria Waterkeeper and founder of Ecofinder Kenya, has been honored with the 2019 African Ranger Award. The African Ranger Awards, presented by the Alibaba Foundation and Paradise Foundation, are given annually to rangers in Africa who work to conserve wildlife and combat poaching, habitat loss, and the illegal wildlife trade.
Leonard is a Kenyan environmental scientist born in Kisumu, Western Kenya, who has been working as a ranger since 2002. Waterkeeper Alliance nominated him for his tireless efforts to coordinate and organize efforts geared towards conservation of Lake Victoria ecosystems and associated species. His work recognizes the important links between wildlife conservation and clean water. He has been instrumental in mobilizing, training, mentoring, coaching, and inspiring locals for proactive conservation of the lake.
Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa and is world-renowned for its specialized wetland species, including the Sitatunga, a rare semi-aquatic antelope, Vervet monkey, Hippopotamus, and Spotted-necked Otter. Despite its natural treasures, this important wetland area is under increasing threat due to anthropogenic pressures, including wetland reclamation for agriculture, the over-harvesting of papyrus for handicraft and cottage industries, sand harvesting, and the burning of wetlands for fishing and settlement.
As the Kenya Lake Victoria Waterkeeper, Leonard successfully advocated against U.S.-based Dominion Farms’ plan to reclaim the Yala papyrus wetlands for commercial agriculture. Additionally, he helped conserve Lake Kenyaboli, part of Yala Wetlands Complex as a National Reserve for the protection of endemic fish species. He is mobilizing local people and developing partnerships to deliver sustainable alternative livelihoods to alleviate human pressure on the natural environment.
He has extended his leadership to mentoring Waterkeepers in East Africa and the Nile Basin Region. Through his leadership, locals including youth, women, and unemployed graduates have joined conservation corps, Waterkeeper groups, and naturalists to provide stewardship in the conservation of their ecosystems and associated species.
In 2018, the inaugural year of the African Ranger Awards, Lagos Lagoon Waterkeeper Felix Olusola Abayomi was given the award in recognition of the exceptional passion and dedication he has demonstrated in his efforts to save sea turtles in Nigeria. Felix is a fearless defender of wildlife in and around the Lagos Lagoon, despite the challenges presented by poachers, developers, pollution, government inaction, and a general lack of care. The African Ranger Awards, in Felix’s words, have “given birth and inspired hundreds of wildlife and environmental advocates and also a national consciousness for the plight of wildlife.”