Linda Tucker
CEO and Founder
After being rescued by a Tsonga medicine woman from a life-threatening encounter with a pride of lions in 1991, Linda Tucker gave up a career in international marketing to become a conservationist.
Since this time, she has dedicated her life to the urgent protection of the critically endangered White Lions, venerated as the King of Kings by African elders. Despite their rarity and cultural importance, the White Lions have no protected status and may be trophy hunted in the wild and in captivity.
To ensure the survival of this legendary animal, Linda Tucker has raised millions of dollars in a long-term strategy to secure large tracks of protected wilderness territory in the heart of the White Lions’ ancestral heritage lands, in the epic-centre of UNESCO’s Kruger-to-Canyons Biosphere, one of the last viable lion ranges on the planet.
Linda is destined to be a figure on the world stage such as Jane Goodall, or Desmond Tutu - someone whose eloquence and sheer force of lived conviction can move millions to see the creation with fresh eyes and act on its behalf - Andrew Harvey
The birthing of a world-first project
In 2002, Linda Tucker founded the Global White Lion Protection Trust after a decade of intensive research on both the cultural and conservation importance of the White Lions, unique to this region.
Together with expert Lion Ecologist Jason A. Turner, and a team of specialists, Linda Tucker was responsible for returning White Lions back to their natural endemic habitat, after decades of artificial removals from their natural system had rendered them extinct in the wild. The first lioness to set paw back in her ancestral kingdom was Queen Marah, regarded as a holy animal by the Indigenous African elders.
Educated in Cambridge University (1980s), then initiated by Indigenous African lion shamans who identified her as the ancestral “Keeper of the White Lions”, Linda Tucker is regularly invited as a special guest speaker at international congresses, public events, and TV shows. In 2018, Linda shared her story with the world at TEDx Wilmington.
Linda Tucker’s life has been featured in numerous cover stories, with an exclusive interview in Forbes Magazine.
Her story is the subject of a full-length documentary for National Geographic and has been covered extensively in other international TV programmes including Reuters, CBS, Animal Planet and NHK Japan.
Linda has been nominated for numerous conservation awards and in 2015, she received the prestigious “Woman of Impact Award” and the Governor’s Citation from the Governor of Maryland County, USA.
A life-long dedication to protect Nature’s Heritage
Linda Tucker has presented at South African Parliament (2007/8, 2018/9), and British Parliament (2013, 2019), calling for the protection of the White Lions and the prohibition of trophies at ports in the UK and USA. Her presentations and keynote address at environmental congresses include: World Wilderness Congress (2001), World Summit of Sustainable Utilisation S. Africa (2002), World Parks Congress (2003), World Carnivore Congress Sante Fe (2004), World Wilderness Congress Alaska (2005), Beyond Duality Congress Guatemala (2008), River of Stars Conference, Hawaii (2012, and 2015), Awakening to Animals Conference, UK (2012 and 2013), Bioneers Conference USA (2018) and WIN Conference Athens (2019).
In 2009, together with Indigenous leaders and climate activists, she had Resolution 33 passed, supported by delegates from 54 countries, demanding that international governments and appropriate bodies protect the White Lions and “all climate indicator species”, a Resolution that was reinstated at the Bioneers Conference 2018.
In 2014, Linda Tucker hosted and helped convene the Global Alliance for Big Cat Conservation – an alliance of scientists and Indigenous elders from 5 different continents in the White Lion Heartlands.
In 2019, Linda Tucker hosted the ground-breaking ASSEGAIA (Alliance for the Sacred Sites of Earth Gaia) Conference in the White Lion Heartlands: a gathering of world-renowned experts in their fields – scientists, activists, Indigenous leaders, healers, and lawyers – with the united goal to establish a framework to protect the world’s most Sacred Natural Sites. She is a co-founder of the ASSEGAIA Alliance, which presented its Declaration for Sacred Natural Sites at Davos, during the World Economic Forum on January 21 2020.
Read the full Blog on Linda’s Presentation of the ASSEGAIA Declaration in Davos 21 January 2020
A Leadership model that puts Nature first
Over three decades, Linda Tucker has campaigned for the protection of lions against the legalised malpractices in South Africa’s notorious cuddle-to-kill industry. Today, it is legal to commercially hunt lions in the wild, in cages after these cubs have been petted by tourists, and to trade them as skeletons into the lion-bone trade to Asian markets.
Over this time, she has developed and launched a LionHearted Leadership™ model for humanity, inspired by the White Lions as icons of good governance, and enlightened leadership. Her pioneering initiatives include the establishment of an Academy for LionHearted Leadership™, equipping adult leaders as agents of change; and the StarLion Eco-Educational programme for emerging youth leadership, which presented to Nelson Mandela in 2007.
In 2016, she founded the Linda Tucker Foundation, which continues to support a LionHearted Leadership™ strategy in ecosystems and human systems for healthy living and a healthy planet.
Linda Tucker lives in the White Lion Heartlands, in the epicentre of the UNESCO Kruger-to-Canyons Biosphere region, together with her team, and the integrated White Lion prides which they have successfully rewilded in a ground-breaking scientific reintroduction project. Click here to read more about the achievements of Linda and her team.
'Never forget that the story of the White Lions is connected with the Stars.' - Credo Mutwa, Africa’s greatest wisdom keeper, handing over the “Great Knowledge” to Linda Tucker.
Books by Linda Tucker
Her first book, Mystery of the White Lions, published in 2001 after 10 years of research on the cultural and legendary aspects of the mysterious White Lions, is now translated and published in 5 different languages, including Japanese.
Linda Tucker has done a great job of chronicling the whole story and the mythology of these Sacred Animals...Through understanding the White Lion we will understand ourselves and our great role in the chain of being. - Deepak Chopra
Her biography, Saving the White Lions (2013) is a best seller. It tells the extraordinary story of rescuing the legendary White Lioness, from a death camp, a story that inspired the recent movie Mia and the White Lions, and is currently in development for a full-scale Hollywood biopic.
An entrancing story, told by a rare individual...a phenomenal book that comes at a critical time in environmental history. - Dr Ian Player, internationally renowned conservationist
Linda’s third publication, LionHearted Leadership: The 13 Laws™ (2016), is a tool utilised across all of the LionHearted Leadership™ initiatives: a handbook for emerging leadership today.
Order books by Linda Tucker online in various countries:
'The Myth of the White Lion is one of those great myths of humanity…' - Deepak Chopra, on Linda Tucker’s book Mystery of the White Lions.
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