Born in Nairobi, Mwangi Githiru studied at the Universities of Moi (B.Sc.) and Kenyatta (M.Sc.) before going to Oxford to read for a DPhil in Zoology (conservation biology). After Oxford, he completed a three-year Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, and then returned to Kenya to take up government policy work. Githiru then transferred into the private sector where he is currently the Chief Conservation Officer at Wildlife Works. His work there develops forest carbon projects in partnership with communities aimed at reducing tropical forest loss for climate change mitigation and to safeguard these biodiverse ecosystems. Githiru has also been a Watson International Scholar of the Environment Fellow (Brown University), a Kinship Conservation Fellow and an Archbishop Tutu Leadership Programme Fellow, and is the author of over 70 academic articles, technical reports and policy papers. This narrative is excerpted from an interview with the Rhodes Trust on 4 April 2025.
Mwangi Githiru
Kenya & St John’s 1999
‘We spent a lot of time outdoors, either playing or doing work’
Although I was born in Nairobi, my family soon moved to Nakuru, about two hours north. My parents had both been born in the area and that’s where I grew up with my two brothers and two sisters. Apart from education, the think that I remember most about growing up is herding. We used to spend all our spare time looking after farm animals. During school days we would do that in the morning and then again when we came back in the evening, making sure that the cows were milked, the milk taken to the dairy and the animals then locked up well for the night. So, we spent a lot of time outdoors, either playing or doing work.
My late dad was a politician and a businessman, but both he and my mother who is a retired teacher were very, very keen on education. My high school was actually at an agricultural and technical high school, where pretty much all of what we ate there was either grown or farmed by the students within the school compound and farm. In Kenya, when you were coming out of high school, you had to select four choices of university courses that you wished to take, and where you ended up would depend on your grades. Without essential guidance, we tended to choose simply based on what our elder family or friends were doing. I had selected all these fancy courses for my top three choises, and my fourth choice, my fallback option, started off being journalism. Then, because my friend had already chosen that, I changed mine to wildlife management. It was the first of two extremely serendipitous moments of my life!
On applying for the Rhodes Scholarship
Studying wildlife management at Moi University turned out to be a blessing, and fairly natural choice for me because it involved a lot of fieldwork and camping outdoors. It was really coming back to myself and my childhood and my exploratory side. My undergraduate thesis looked at some forest bird species and how they ate fruits and dispersed their seeds around the forest. When I graduated, my thesis supervisor encouraged me to take my thesis to the Ornithology Department at the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) and the head of department there then, Dr. Leon Bennun, recruited me to work on an urgent ornithological project in Tanzania. Leon had done his PhD in Oxford too, he knew about the Rhodes Scholarship which he introduced me to.
I made my first application, and I have to say it was perhaps the most unpleasant experience I have ever had. It was really difficult for me. The questions were so out of the world that I had grown up in. There are only two Rhodes Scholars from Kenya each year and many of those had done their high school or undergrad in Europe or the US. They had been trained to express themselves well and confidently. But when I failed that first year, Leon said, ‘Look, you’re young and you can do it again,’ and during the next year, I had some prep sessions with him. When I applied again, the chairman of the selection committee said, ‘Something happened over the past year, I think. You did very well this year.’ So, that effort of taking my thesis to NMK and meeting Leon was the second of my two serendipitous moments.
‘It opened up lots of opportunities’
Oxford was a very interesting time for me. I arrived there and in the first week there were all of these dinners with six or seven sets of cutlery and we just didn’t know what to do with them. It was a very rarefied atmosphere and felt all too privileged. Obviously as a Rhodes Scholar it also opened up lots of opportunities: we were invited to take part in apprenticeships with leading global organisations and interacted with people from other top scholarships as well as numerous leaders and global figures from the political world and other industries. It was really fun but also very humbling.
Academically, working in ecology, a lot of the authors I had grown up reading were down the hall from my office. Every Friday, we had a seminar and there were all these experts sitting in the room with you. The sheer range of human cultural diversity was also very interesting. We would have these gatherings where we would interact with completely different people, culturally and academically. And I think that came when we were at an age where we were just ready to take everything in and understand how people live. I made amazing friends with enduring friendships, and we had wonderful conversations and discussions. I realised very quickly just how amazing my fellow Scholars are and when I heard some of their stories, I was impressed at how much they seemed to have already packed into their still tender years!
‘I find the thematic breadth of my work really exciting’
After I had finished my DPhil, I did a few years of postdoc around Europe. I decided that a full academic career with its ‘publish or perish’ culture wasn’t right for me. I returned to Kenya and joined the public sector, working in government for three years. When the private sector opportunity at Wildlife Works came calling, it felt like a very good transition and amalgamation of the things I’d been trying to do in the scientific world and the policy world, now with the chance to implement them in the real world.
At Wildlife Works, we implement projects that halt or reduce the rate of forest degradation or loss and that also increase forest by planting. We’re trying to reduce the impact of climate change by reducing the rate of carbon dioxide release from forest destruction. Within that, my specific role is to assess the impacts that our projects have on people and wildlife. There are a lot of potential negative impacts but also a lot of positive things that can be done as you implement forest projects to improve wildlife and to improve people’s livelihoods.
I find the thematic breadth of my work really exciting. There’s a lot of hardcore science but there’s also a lot of policy and working with governments, alongside community development and engagement work and then working with markets. Since all of our projects are in the private sector, this means we have to find buyers for our carbon credits. It means we have to engage on all these fronts, from governments to communities to markets to science. My role is also very varied geographically. I work across the globe, supporting projects in the tropical world, from Africa to Latin America and Asia. It’s a great mix, and it’s regionally fascinating trying to sort out the same problem in the Amazon as in the Congo Basin as in the dry land forests of Zambia.
Whatever I’m doing, whether it’s policy or whether it’s research, I really focus on the question of whether it’s meaningful. Does it change somebody’s life for the better? Does it change an elephant’s life for the better? My job allows me to give back, and I also give back to society in other ways, through mentorships, for example, or through supporting somebody’s education, health etc.. For me, that’s really fulfilling. The other big chunk of my life is my family. We have two boys and they’re constantly teaching us life’s lessons about tolerance and giving!
‘Try to remember why you were selected in the first place’
To today’s Rhodes Scholars, I would say, focus on remaining grounded. When you come out of Oxford, especially if you’ve spent three years or more there studying for your DPhil, you can feel a bit hollow, as if there’s something missing. You can’t have the same conversations with people or just go to the pub to chat in the way you get used to in Oxford. If you struggle with that when you leave, try to remember why you were selected in the first place. Rhodes Scholars have diverse qualities, but all of those qualities are outstanding. To this day, I often find myself drawing on that sense of personal achievement when I encounter intellectual or other challenges that can introduce doubt in my abilities.
It’s also very important to help people. The help I received from my supervisor, mentor and friend, Dr. Leon Bennun, was crucial for me, and I’ve looked for ways that I can help other people realise their potential in the same way. Luckily, I have able to mentor people in Kenya and elsewhere, also, through engaging in the Rhodes Scholarships selection process for some years. Several of the people I worked with were not sure whether to apply, but they did following our many conversations and happily, some eventually got the Scholarship. Now that you’ve gone through the process, it’s only fair that you try to impart that to somebody else. Don’t let it just stop with you.