Dickson Kaelo

Dickson Ole Kaelo is a conservation ecologist and the founding Chief Executive Officer of the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA). With over 20 years of experience, he has championed community-led conservation as a strategy to tackle biodiversity loss and promote rural development. Through policy advocacy, financing, strategic planning, and awareness, he has enabled the growth of Kenya’s conservancy network to more than 200 conservancies covering 9.7 million hectares—about 16% of the country’s land area under conservation. He is a finalist for the 2018 Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa and co-winner of the 2012 Sustainable Science Award by the Ecological Society of America.