Africa Focus: Experts suggest community conservancies for human-lion coexistence

Researchers have suggested creating community conservancies to promote the coexistence of humans and lions, against a backdrop of dwindling lion population in Africa.

A team of researchers from Britain's University of Glasgow have conducted a study in Kenya, in which they say community conservancies could help stem the loss of lions.

There has been a dramatic decline in lion numbers in almost all areas where lions and people overlap, indicating that habitat fragmentation and human-wildlife conflict are a major driver behind the loss.

However the increase in lion numbers in Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve have made researchers believe the conservancy membership for local people could engender the coexistence.

"The lion populations have increased substantially within Kenya's Masai Mara ecosystem over the last decade," Sara Blackburn, lead author of the study, said in a statement issued in Nairobi on Thursday.

Their study demonstrates the financial benefits of conservancy membership could help protect the lion population, and even help it grow, by changing the locals' attitude towards wildlife.

Blackburn said the community conservancies distribute tourism income to locals and make them feel as co-owners of the parks.

"The net effect is that people become more tolerant of lions because they attract tourists and bring an alternative source of income to landowners," she said.

According to their study, lions are often killed by rural people in retaliation for losing their livestock to lions.

Three years ago, Kenya's Maasai community killed six lions that had strayed out of the capital's Nairobi National Park and preyed on livestock in the surrounding villages. Several such incidents have happened in the past.

A team led by Blackburn tracked lions for five years in Masai Mara and the northern side of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. They built a database of observations, using lions' whisker spot patterns to identity individuals over time.

"We know that lion populations are declining right across Africa, but moratoriums on trophy hunting don't prevent local people from killing lions, and fences stifle ecosystems," she said.

Dr. Grant Hopcraft, a co-author of the study, said community conservancies are a viable way to protect wildlife and provides an alternative solution to building fences.

"If we are concerned about the population of lions, we need to let the people who actually live with the lions benefit from their existence," he said.

Researchers have therefore called on governments to enhance wildlife conservation cooperation, including the setting up of reserves, with private landholders and local communities. Endit