This TED Talk features biodiversity scientist Kevin and Jabbo, recorded live at TED Global 2017.

So many of us who care about sustainable development and livelihood of local people do so for deeply personal reasons.

I grew up in Cameroon, a country of enchanting beauty and rich biodiversity, but plagued by

governance, environmental destruction and poverty.

As a child, like we see with most children in South Southern Africa today, I really suffered

for malaria.

To this day, more than one million people die from malaria

every year, mostly children under the age of five, with 90 percent occurring in sub-saharan

Africa. When I was 18, I left Cameroon in search of better educational opportunities.

At the time, there was just one university in Cameroon,

but Nigeria next door offered some opportunities

for Cameroonians of English extraction to be trained in Vedas field.

So I moved there.

But practicing my trade upon graduation as an oncologist in Nigeria

was an even bigger challenge. So I left the continent when I was offered a scholarship to Boston University for my PhD.

It is this happening to see that with all our challenges, with all the talents, with all the

skills we have in Africa as a continent.

We tend to solve our problems by parachuting in experts from the West for short stays,

exporting the best and brightest out of Africa,

and treating Africa as a continent in perpetual need of handouts.

After my training at Boston University, I joined the research team at the University of California's

Institute of the Environment and Sustainability because of its reputation for groundbreaking research

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