Hoping to raise $20,000 by the New Year!

Tanzania's Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) makes up 8,300 km2 of the Serengeti ecosystem and is a critical site for lion conservation. It is a key 'hub' for the dispersal and connectivity of the Northern Tanzania and Southern Kenya's Maasai land lion meta-population and yet its lion population is under threat of becoming isolated.

Ngorongoro’s lions generate valuable revenue for Tanzania and the international tourism industry, but their attacks on people and livestock pose a significant financial burden on the NCA's residents, prompting retaliatory lion killings. As a result of these killings, lions have disappeared from much of their historical range within the NCA and the Crater population of lions has been largely isolated from the rest of the Serengeti ecosystem, greatly reducing their genetic diversity.

KopeLion have worked in Ngorongoro since 2011 to ensure that lions survive and thrive alongside human populations, with a long-term goal to ensure that lion population recovery in northern Tanzania is a community choice and enterprise. Engaging with communities, government authorities and tourism businesses, we:

Monitor lions and their behaviour: the Crater lion population, studied since 1963 is uniquely important as an example of the challenges facing an isolated, inbred population and offers a rare opportunity to measure the impact from lion conservation on a population where each lion is individually recognized.

Mitigate human-lion conflict and prevent killing of lions: we employ 30 warriors from the local communities to prevent conflict events by monitoring lions, warning herders of their presence and moving people and herds out of danger, finding and retrieving lost livestock most vulnerable to attack, treating wounded livestock, and using conflict resolution skills to prevent retaliation against lions when depredations of livestock occur.

Support communities to tolerate lions: KopeLion's engagement with the Ngorongoro people to create a ‘corridor of tolerance’ between the crater and the Serengeti, has yielded considerable success. Our monitoring data shows that lions are recovering range in community occupied areas, and the time that lions are spending in areas occupied by people, has increased by approximately 18% per year since 2017. An increase of tolerance within pastoralist communities has enabled lions to disperse between the hubs of the Crater and Ndutu.

A viable model for coexisting will need to both increase the numbers of lions and their connectivity between “lion hubs” in the NCA, as well as decrease their negative economic impacts on the local people. KopeLion considers it of key importance to focus on continuing to improve human lion coexistence strategies in support of Tanzania's recent National Human Wildlife Conflict Strategy, that can continue to be implemented in the NCA and beyond. As change continues and threatens both people and lions, we need to ensure that our model for coexistence is informed, appropriate, maintainable, versatile and 100% inclusive.

Ngorongoro Lions New Year Appeal

By KopeLion

Ngorongoro Lions New Year Appeal

Our non-profit organisation helps pastoralists in Ngorongoro to live alongside lions and protect them. Help us raise $20,000 by the New Year!