After Cecil, Latest Battle Plan In The Fight To Save Lions

August 19, 2015

With a brand-new agreement in hand, the conservation group Panthera hopes to boost the big cat’s numbers by 50 percent.

By Vicki Croke

A new project in Angola is part of Panthera’s effort to boost lion numbers in Africa over the next 

15 years—from 20,000 to at least 30,000. Photo: Luke Hunter/Panthera.

What will it take to save African lions? Protect them. At least that’s part of a complex series of strategies being charted by Panthera, the global wild cat group that is already working in several African countries, and has just started a new initiative in Angola as part of its effort to increase lion numbers by 10,000—from 20,000 today to more than 30,000 by 2030.

Keeping lions safe is a goal that will resonate with the millions of people who have been outraged by the killing of the lion Cecil last month. And Angola is a country that happens to be close enough geographically to Zimbabwe, where Cecil was killed, to share a great swath of conservation land with it. Still, it might seem like a surprising place to make a stand for lions—many of us think of East Africa when we think of lions. After all, Elsa of “Born Free” fame lived in Kenya. But Panthera has targeted an area of Africa that they say has tremendous potential for the big cats.

One massive conservation area—KAZA— is spread across five countries and “is home to one of 

Africa’s largest lion populations.” Photo: Luke Hunter/Panthera.

Angola contains part of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation area, or KAZA, which, according to Dr. Paul Funston, senior lion program director for Panthera, “is home to one of Africa’s largest lion populations.”

And Angola already bans trophy hunting, an issue that’s on the minds of Panthera’s team. As Funston wrote in an email, the conservation group is hoping “to reduce the dependency of African countries on allowing tourist trophy hunters to shoot lion.” But what that will take, he says, is a lot more money to protect vast wild spaces there.

The Memorandum of Understanding between Panthera and the country’s ministry of environment, which was signed on July 25, was a year and a half in the making. And it will set in motion an action plan that includes surveying lion numbers and habitat, enlisting and educating local scientists, and helping keep the people living near them—and their cattle—safe.

After a year and a half of talking and negotiating, Paul Funston of Panthera (left), signs a 

memorandum of understanding to protect lions with an Angolan official. Photo: Panthera.

“No one has ever surveyed lions in this part of Angola,” says Funston, “which is the largest portion of national park land in KAZA.” Over a two-year period, Panthera plans to conduct that first-ever survey of lions and other large carnivores. In consolidating a number of protected areas, the government has created “two very large national parks – Luengue-Luiana and Mavinga,” Funston says. And they have forged a “totally a massive” 84,000-square-kilometer protected area.

“Lions are the epitome of all that is wild and wonderful about African savannas. Without lions savannas are a tame version of their former self.” —Paul Funston, senior lion program director for Panthera.

During the survey, experts will also be assessing threats to the animals. “Human encroachment of the protected areas is likely to be the key threat,” Funston says, and the reduction of human/lion conflict is an important part of the work. “There is rising human-lion conflict in some areas as lion populations recover. These communities need assistance before they resort to killing lions and so that they can benefit from the tourism potential of their lions.”

Paul Funston provided this unpublished photo he took of Cecil at age 11 back in 2013. Photo: Paul Funston/Panthera.

Building up better law enforcement will reduce another major threat, according to Funston: bushmeat poaching. Panthera, he says, is “investing heavily in anti-poaching.” The goal, Funston says, is to “ultimately ensure that about 500 lions are protected within these new parks.”

The lion habitat here, as Funston describes it, is “relatively arid sandy area with spectacular teak woodlands, pans and a few very open floodplain river systems.” The survey will be conducted in the Angola portion of KAZA, but, Funston says, “Panthera is working to recover lions in all countries comprising KAZA,” which also includes Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana.

Angola is a rich, but famously troubled country. It was embroiled in a civil war that lasted from the beginning of its independence in 1975 until 2002. Oil and diamonds provide great wealth, yet it has the highest mortality rate for children under 5. Still, lions could conceivably be a source of national pride and income. Funston says, “The Angolan ministry of wildlife is so enthusiastic about its wildlife and hopes to foster tourism through biological surveys and recovering wildlife populations.”
For Funston, the work here is a mission. Having studied them for 25 years, he says simply, “I love lions.”

“I want to hear lions roar throughout the protected areas of Africa,” says Paul Funston of Panthera. 

Photo: Luke Hunter/Panthera.

That affection is for individuals—like Cecil, whom he photographed in 2013—and also the species as a whole. “Lions are the epitome of all that is wild and wonderful about African savannas,” Funston says. “Without lions savannas are a tame version of their former self. I want to hear lions roar throughout the protected areas of Africa, and I am not willing to contemplate a world without 30,000 or more wild lions.”

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