CEO, conservationist,
agitator: Paula
Kahumbu runs the
Kenyan conservation
group WildlifeDirect.
Kahumbu describes to
city teenagers visiting
Nairobi National Park
the interplay between
species: how ants help
a native acacia tree
defend itself against
herbivores such as
giraffes and rhinos.
KENYA
SCIENCE
LEADER
chief, or mayor, the first woman ever to hold the office since it was created
160 years ago. “The day that the power and choice was given to the people,”
Abderrahim says, “they chose a woman.”
Her approach to governance was also a break from the past. Instead of
making decisions unilaterally, Abderrahim adopted a consultative system
that involves all 60 members of the local council. In Tunisia, municipal
councils are responsible for the affairs of a city, and as Abderrahim says,
the Tunis council in the capital is “like a mother to all the other coun-
cils,” overseeing the 350 scattered across the country. “I have the power
to sign certain agreements, but I won’t sign a single agreement without
discussing it with the members of the council,” she says. “Democracy is
about inclusion.”
Hamida and other rights activists are now pushing to change long-held
cultural traditions rooted in religion around issues of inheritance. Tuni-
sia’s inheritance law dictates that women inherit half of what men do, a
68 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC