Living on the landscape with lions and other large predators can impose significant costs on local communities. When lions prey on livestock, people sometimes retaliate by killing lions. Human/wildlife conflict is one of the leading factors contributing to the 50% decline in lion populations across Africa over the past two decades.
The Ruaha Carnivore Project (RCP), a BAND Foundation grantee, works with local communities around Tanzania’s Ruaha National Park – a lion stronghold – to build support for lion conservation, including by promoting practices that mitigate livestock losses to predators and by providing financial benefits to villages that maintain healthy wildlife populations on their land. Four RCP staff have recently been recognized by a WildAid campaign featuring the men and women working on the front lines across Africa to protect lions. In addition to the video above, you can learn about RCP’s other “unsung heroes” here and here.
The BAND Foundation actively supports community-driven solutions to lion conservation through investments in RCP as well as the Lion Recovery Fund, Kenya Wildlife Trust and Lion Guardians.