Noel Simon

Author and founder of the Kenya Wildlife Society who pioneered conservation in East Africa

Last Updated: 6:22PM GMT 30 Oct 2008

Simon's contribution to wildlife conservation extended beyond Kenya itself Noel Simon, who died on October 20 aged 86, was a pioneer of conservation in East Africa; as founder, in 1955, of the Kenya Wildlife Society (later the East African Wildlife Society) he helped to shape the ethical framework of conservation that was to make Kenya one of the leaders in the field.

Simon was one of a small minority of Europeans and Africans in the late 1940s and 1950s who worked unselfishly and tirelessly for the welfare of the African terrain and the wild animals that called it home.

He was the prime mover in arranging for Lake Nakuru – famous for the richness and diversity of its bird life – to be accorded National Park status and was also responsible for persuading the Kenyan authorities to set aside 105,000 acres in the South West Mau Forest as a nature reserve.

But Simon's contribution to wildlife conservation extended beyond Kenya itself. Whilst still in its early stages, his Kenya Wildlife Society became deeply involved with the Tanganyika government's controversial proposal to excise the Ngorongoro Crater from the Serengeti National Park.

Although this matter was nothing to do with the Kenyans, the Tanganyika National Park authorities respected and welcomed the society's initiative; and when it became clear that the government was determined to excise the Crater, it was Simon who proposed that the loss to the Park should be compensated for by an award of land reaching northwards to link up with the Kenya Masai Mara.

His proposal was adopted, and some 2,000 square miles were added to Serengeti to embrace the full migratory range of the wildebeest, something that has since been of great benefit to Kenya's tourism industry.

By now Simon had the reputation of man who could get things done, and he was invited to join the Royal National Parks of Kenya, where he rose rapidly to the post of deputy director under the first director, Col Mervyn Cowie. Simon was largely responsible for persuading the colonial government to recognise the seriousness of the threat from poaching to the country's most important National Park, Tsavo, and to provide the means to counter it.

Working closely with David Sheldrick, the founder warden of Tsavo East National Park, Simon arranged a series of meetings with the then governor, the commissioner of police, the provincial administration and others, which led to the highly effective anti-poaching campaign of the 1950s. This initiative, under the overall command of Sheldrick, cleared the Tsavo National Park of poachers for the next decade.

Again in collaboration with Sheldrick, Simon master-minded what became the Galana Game Management Scheme, aimed at providing the Waliangulu tribe with an alternative means of livelihood to poaching. The scheme was the first attempt to manage elephants on accepted conservation principles for the benefit of the local people, but it foundered due to lack of funding by the government.

Noel Murray Simon was born at Cliftonville, Kent, on Christmas Day 1921, one of five children of a naval officer who took part in the first attempt to fly an airship across the Atlantic. From an early age Noel showed great interest in, and compassion for, wildlife (his favourite possession was a fine hand-carved Noah's Ark).

He was educated at Christ's Hospital, and after the outbreak of war joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. He was to serve throughout the war as a fighter pilot with the Fleet Air Arm.

After joining No 805 Squadron he left for the Mediterranean on the aircraft carrier Illustrious, which was involved in the fighting during the evacuation from Crete. The Martlet fighters of No 805 then joined an RAF fighter wing in North Africa and saw action over the Western Desert. On one occasion, in April 1942, Simon was forced to crashland his aircraft after suspecting it was on fire.

Back in Britain he was practising deck landings on the carrier Activity off the west coast of Scotland when his aircraft missed the arrestor wires and crashed into the sea, but he was soon rescued. In the summer of 1943 he returned to Illustrious to join No 878 Squadron flying the Wildcat, an advanced Martlet. On one occasion his aircraft overturned on landing but Simon escaped unscathed. The carrier sailed for the Mediterranean, and in September Simon flew patrols in support of the Allied landings at Salerno.

Early in 1944 he was flying Wildcats from Activity in support of Atlantic and Russian convoys. On March 31 he and another pilot were scrambled to intercept one of the Luftwaffe's long-range Focke Wulf Condor aircraft, which had been detected shadowing their convoy 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The two pilots intercepted the aircraft and shot it down. Simon continued to fly off the escort carrier until September. He was mentioned in dispatches, and was released from the Navy in 1946.

In 1942 Simon had visited Kenya as part of his war service, and, having fallen in love with the country, he resolved to return. He did so in 1947, and there married Betty Bingley, with whom he established a farm in the highlands on virgin land near Molo. They were to have two daughters and a son.

In 1952 Betty's younger brother became one of the first Europeans to be murdered by Mau Mau. In an attempt to help track down the gang responsible, Simon joined "I" Force, spending six months operating in the Aberdares, sometimes on foot, but mainly from the air. He was convinced that the Fleet Air Arm's antiquated "Stringbag" would be the ideal aircraft for operational use in the Aberdares; but by then none was to be had, so Harvards were obtained in their place.

Simon remained chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Society until 1962. But following a fall-out with Col Cowie he left the National Parks service, and for the next seven years (1962-69) worked at the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) in Switzerland.

There, with just a part-time secretary, he compiled the first volume – Mammalia (1966) – of the Red Data Books, the official international compendium of the world's rare and endangered species. The idea for the series of Red Data Books was Sir Peter Scott's, but Simon was given a free hand to compile the first volume; he was given complete discretion in deciding the content and format, as well as the species eligible for listing, a project which involved intensive research.

Mammalia formed the prototype for the series of publications, covering both animals and plants, that followed. Since then, more than 150 RDBs have been published, and have won acclaim from scientists in the field.

On leaving IUCN in 1969, Simon returned to England to concentrate on writing. Altogether, he wrote 36 books, including Between the Sunlight and the Thunder (1962, about his conservation work in Kenya) and a number of children's books.

He was also closely associated with the Edward James Foundation at West Dean, in West Sussex, the private charitable educational trust dedicated to teaching arts and crafts, of which he was executive chairman for 10 years (1975-1986).

Noel Simon's first marriage was dissolved, and having returned to England in 1970, he married, in 1978, Vanessa Hamilton, with whom he had a son. He is survived by a daughter of his first marriage and the son of his second.