Hunters Not the Enemy in New Lion Conservation Strategy

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, January 17, 2006 (ENS) - A new plan to safeguard the African lion in eastern and southern Africa is the outcome of a workshop convened by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Wildlife Conservation Society in Johannesburg. The new strategy that aims to strengthen the chances for future peaceful co-existence between lions and people includes hunters on the side of conservation.

Representatives from range state governments, local communities, lion biologists and safari hunters attended the meeting, which wound up on Friday with a strategy that includes creating incentives to build stronger community support for lion conservation and reducing human-lion conflict.

"Africans know how to live together with lions; they have been doing so for a very long time," said Dr. James Murombedzi, the director of the IUCN regional office based in Zimbabwe.

Regulated trophy hunting was not considered a threat, but was instead viewed as a way to help alleviate human-lion conflict and generate economic benefits for poor people to build their support for lion conservation. Foreign hunters bring millions of dollars each year into African economies.

African lions have vanished from 80 percent of their former range. (Photo courtesy USFWS)

Over the past 20 years, lion numbers are suspected to have dropped from an estimated 76,000 to a population estimated to be between 23,000 and 39,000 today. Across Africa, the lion has disappeared from over 80 percent of its former range.

“We don’t want this century to be a repeat of the last,” said Kristin Nowell, a member of the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s Cat Specialist Group, who helped organize the workshop.

The African lion is classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species due to a continuing decline in the species’ population. In west Africa, lions number fewer than 1,500 and meet the criteria for Regionally Endangered.

Meeting participants agreed that one solution is enabling policy, legal and institutional frameworks for wildlife-integrated land use. Emerging from the workshop is a better understanding of the current status and range of the African lion, including "Lion Conservation Units," or areas identified as being of top importance for lion conservation.

Delegates agreed to work towards preventing illegal trade in lions and lion products, improving scientifically sound management of the lion, and developing management capacity.

The meeting appeared to build increased consensus on management actions necessary to conserve lion populations over the next 10 years and strengthening of the political commitment to implement conservation.

Lion hunters with their trophy (Photo courtesy Shumba Safaris)

The workshop provides a solid basis for bringing Africa together to conserve the lion, Kipng’etich said. “The result is that lion management has a high chance of success in the future,” he said.

Kipng’etich says Kenya may lift a 30 year long ban on sport hunting as part of an ongoing review of its wildlife policies.

The workshop is linked to an earlier meeting on lions in West and Central Africa which took place in Douala, Cameroon in October last year. Results from the west and central Africa workshop and the southern and eastern Africa workshop will be combined into a continental lion conservation strategy, organizers said.

The continental strategy will help guide national governments and the international conservation community by ensuring that investment in lion conservation is targeted most effectively.

The workshops were organized by the IUCN at the invitation of the Southern Africa Development Community. The initiative was generously sponsored by the UK government’s Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Safari Club International Foundation, and the Wildlife Conservation Society based at New York's Bronx Zoo.

For more information and meeting background documents, visit: http://www.felidae.org/JOBURG/lion.htm