Johannesburg, South Africa, 13 January 2006 (IUCN) – A new strategy to save the King of Beasts, the African Lion in eastern and southern Africa, was agreed at the conclusion of a workshop convened by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Wildlife Conservation Society in Johannesburg, South Africa. Stakeholders from range state governments, local community representatives, lion biologists and safari hunters attended the meeting.

The meeting concluded that the reduction in the lion’s wild prey base, human-lion conflicts and habitat degradation are the major reasons for declining lion populations and need to be addressed. Regulated trophy hunting was not considered a threat, but rather viewed as a way to help alleviate human-lion conflict and generate economic benefits for poor people to build their support for lion conservation.

‘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 World Conservation Union’s regional office based in Zimbabwe. The new lion conservation strategy aims to strengthen the chances for future peaceful co-existence between lions and people.

Over the past 20 years, lion numbers are suspected to have dropped dramatically 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”.

So what will Southern and Eastern Africa do to save the lion? Governments, biologists, and other professionals agreed to focus on: enabling policy, legal and institutional frameworks for wildlife-integrated land use; reducing human-lion conflict; preventing illegal trade in lions and lion products; improving scientifically sound management of the lion; developing management capacity; and creating incentives to build stronger community support for lion conservation.

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. In addition, there is increased consensus on and political commitment to the management actions necessary to conserve lion populations over the next 10 years.

The Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, Mr. Julius Kipng’etich concluded that the workshop had helped build consensus around the issues and solutions. “It helped us to understand where other people are coming from - different backgrounds, different philosophies. But at the end of the day, we boiled it down to one main problem: unsustainable lion populations.”

The Director concluded that the workshop provides a solid basis for bringing Africa together to conserve the lion. “The result is that lion management has a high chance of success in the future.”

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 this week’s southern and eastern Africa workshop will be combined into a continental lion conservation strategy. This will help guide both national governments and the international conservation community by ensuring that investment in lion conservation is targeted most effectively.

The workshops were organized by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) at the invitation of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). The initiative was generously sponsored by the UK government’s Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Safari Club International Foundation, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

For more information contact:

Caroline Gwature, Media and Communications Assistant, Mobile: +27 76 78 00 363; Phone +263 4 728 266/7; Fax: +263 4 720 738; carolinegiucnrosa.org.zw; www.iucnrosa.org.zw

Kristin Nowell, Director (Cat Action Treasury) and Core Group member, IUCN SSC Cat Specialist Group catfelidae.org; www.felidae.org