West and Central African Lion Conservation network

The lion is more threatened in West and Central Africa than in the rest of the continent. They are living in small fragmented populations in protected areas and their immediate surroundings, and almost all groups are small. The savanna belt of West and Central Africa is also an ecosystem with widespread extensive animal husbandry, and livestock production is an essential part of local livelihoods. Around protected areas, lions generally cause damage by depredation of between 2 and 10% of the herd every year. This has a serious impact on household economy and on perceptions of nature and attitudes towards protected areas. Poaching of lions is known to increase with the number of depredation incidents. This project aims to strengthen a recently (2002) created network for lion conservation and human-lion-conflict mitigation in the region, the West and Central African Lion Conservation Network. The network aims to enable its members to mitigate human-wildlife-conflict and to strive for conservation of lions whilst ensuring compatibility with local development. Current network members are based in Guinea, Senegal, Benin, Cameroon and Uganda, and candidate-members in Niger, Ghana, Chad, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. Through this project, the network will expand with new members (protected area staff and NGOs) in currently unrepresented countries, members will be able to have a capacity building workshop and five pilot projects for human-lion-conflict mitigation will be executed by local NGOs with feedback to the entire network. The workshop with network members will allow each of them to be more effective in their own area in lion conservation and livestock damage reduction in the short and medium term. This activity takes place in Cameroon, because of its central location and the available infrastructure (Garoua Wildlife College). The site-specific activities are the deployment of eco-guards and the implementation of pilot projects. These two activities will be implemented in the rural areas (bufferzones) around Waza NP (Cameroon). Benoue NP (Cameroon), Pendjari Biosphere reserve (Benin), Niokolo-Badiar Transfrontier park (Senegal and Guinea) and Zakouma NP (Chad). These pilot projects will focus on improving collaboration between local livestock owners and protected area authorities in order to reduce damage to livestock and to reduce retaliatory poaching: good for local development and for lion conservation.

The results of this project include the following: The African Lion Network (ROCAL) has been formalised and is functional The capacities of the network members to mitigate of human-lion conflicts have improved 43 students from the network members countries have been trained at the Ecole de la Faune de Maroua. A actionplan for the conservation of lions in the sub region has been elaborated The capacity of local NGOs has been strengthened through the implementation of five micro projects by five local NGOs. The implementation of these micro projects led to the: - Significant increase of improved enclosures; a total of 21 enclosures were established in villages most affected by livestock raiding. These enclosures led to a reduction of about 50% of livestock predation. - Significant reduction of lion-livestock conflicts; complaints by livestock owners; lions killed or injured; occurrence of livestock grazing inside park boundaries. Improved knowledge on human-lion conflict management and standardization of data collation on lions in the region. Improved communication, information exchange and capacity building within the network via the network’s own website. This exchange is facilitated by the Secretariat.