While Director of National Parks in Tanzania from 1960-70 he raised �3 million to open up the park system, build roads and buy equipment, and he turned a small lab into the flourishing Serengeti Research Institute.

Owen also created nine other national parks, including Arusha and Gombi, and was instrumental in training Africans as wardens and was one of the first to recognise the importance of introducing children to the animals that shared their land. (in 1971 he was awarded the Gold Medal from the World Wildlife Fund and its Order of the Golden Ark in 1975).

In 1973 he left Africa for the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington DC, the think-tank on global ecology, before retiring to Tunbridge Wells, with his wife Patricia.

John Simpson Owen. 31 Dec 1912 to 23 Feb 95