Lion numbers are plummeting: thousands are killed by people every year in retaliation for taking livestock. Most national parks are too small to protect lions, which move widely in search of prey and are then speared, shot or poisoned when they move beyond park boundaries and take cattle. LWL works to restore, conserve and manage Africa’s large carnivores by promoting traditional livestock management techniques that protect cattle from lions and foster the coexistence of people, livestock and predators. As the first conservation group to tackle lion conservation outside parks, our early research showed that when properly applied, ancient African livestock management methods are highly effective at protecting livestock from predators, and that minor, inexpensive modifications make them even better.   Building upon our research and experience, many other lion conservation groups have been formed in eastern and southern Africa to work with rural people outside protected areas.

We pioneered community-based approaches to lion conservation, working with traditional Masai, Samburu, and other pastoralists throughout Kenya. We designed a cheap and simple modification to thorn bush bomas that essentially eliminate the threat from predators, helped communities build hundreds of demonstration projects incorporating these ideas, and created a lion conservation video in the Maasai language that has been seen by thousands of pastoralists in remote parts of Kenya. We created the Lion Guardians project in southern Kenya which is now independent and active in other countries.

One of our most important accomplishments was to bring the world’s attention to predator poisoning, the use of cheap agricultural pesticides to eliminate lions, hyenas, and many other scavenging species on a vast scale in Africa. We played a key role in pressuring chemical companies to stop distributing these in East Africa.

We have published over forty scientific papers on lion conservation and relevant aspects of lion behaviour and ecology. We are currently collaborating with scientists from Mpala Research Centre in Laikipia, and the University of California, Santa Cruz, and have fitted nearly forty lions with sophisticated GPS collars that record where lions go, how fast they move, the amount of energy they consume, and how they react to human and livestock disturbance. We have found that human activities have a variety of subtle but important impacts on lion ecology, often affecting their ability to hunt, feed, and protect their cubs, basic biological needs which have major implications for lion survival.   These studies provides information critical for designing conservation and livestock management actions that minimise disturbance to lions but are also sensitive to the needs of people and their domestic animals.