Mervyn Cowie

Mervyn Hugh Cowie, (13 April 1909 – 19 July 1996) was a conservationist who pioneered wildlife protection and the development of tourism throughout East Africa.

Early life Cowie was a descendant of Scottish farmers who migrated to South Africa. Cowie's father resigned as Chief Magistrate of Johannesburg, South Africa to settle in Kenya. Cowie was born in Nairobi on 13 April 1909. The complete lack of government policies on conservation was the principal cause of this depletion.

Between 1932 and 1939 Cowie was a district councillor in Nairobi. He also campaigned tirelessly for the protection of wildlife. He was frustrated by the government's lack of action on this issue, so he used the ploy of anonymously advocating the destruction of all East Africa's wildlife to improve agriculture. he wrote a letter to the East African Standard signed "Old Settler" which proposed the slaughter of all of Kenya's wild animals. He became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1960. He resigned from the Royal National Parks of Kenya in 1966. By 1970 he was a Senior Consultant to the World Wildlife Fund. In 1972 he joined the African Medical and Research Foundation in Nairobi as financial director. In 1954 he was awarded the Efficiency Decoration for long part-time military service. The 1951 British-made film Where No Vultures Fly (renamed Ivory Hunter in the United States) was a fictionalised account of Cowie's work.

Cowie married Molly Beaty in 1934. They had two sons and one daughter. Beaty died in 1956. He married Valori Hare Duke in 1957. They had one son and one daughter. He retired to England in 1989, and settled near Saxmundham, Suffolk. He died from a heart attack aged 87 on 19 July 1996, at Ipswich Hospital.