Our vision is to double the number of lions in Africa.
In the past 25 years, lion numbers have been cut in half across Africa. The vision of the Lion Recovery Fund is to bring that half back, recovering lions continent-wide to ~40,000 individuals by 2050.
We work towards lion recovery using a three-pronged strategythat expands the conservation footprint, builds the public, political, and philanthropic will for lion recovery, and elevates the amount of funding for conservation of lions and their habitat.
The Lion Recovery Fund is designed to be catalytic: it will work to stimulate new levels of financial commitment, create new conservation investments to expand the conservation footprint, increase and expand approaches proven to work, and convene organizations to explore ways to work together where collaboration has not been present before.
Recovering lions and restoring landscapes across their range will require concerted efforts across three strategies:
Expand the Conservation Footprint Increase the extent and effectiveness of the management of lion landscapes across Africa.
Build the Will Build the public, political and philanthropic will to bring lions back.
Scale the Funding Elevate the amount of funding available for—and encourage greater focus on—the conservation of lions and their landscapes.
Success is Possible
Recent studies have revealed that if all protected areas within the existing lion range were adequately managed for lions, we could more than triple the number of lions we have today. The imperative to support these core areas and communal lands around them is clear.
Lions can be prolific. Lions will rapidly reproduce and their numbers will recover if their habitats are protected, if they have enough prey, if communities are incentivized to tolerate and co-exist with them and if poaching is minimized.
If Africa’s landscapes were managed as lionscapes, i.e. lands where lions and their prey thrive to the benefit of local people, lion loss can be reversed and their populations—and that of many other critical species—will recover.
Distribution & Status
Lions have vanished from 80% of their historical range.
