A novel conservation project in Kenya’s Maasailand is employing the lion’s greatest enemy to conserve, rather than kill, lions.
In Maasailand, the biggest threat to lions is retaliatory and traditional spearing by Maasai warriors. However, an innovative approach to lion conservation is now paying Maasai warriors to protect lions.

Lion Guardians

Living with Lions (LWL), a research and conservation group in Kenya, started the Lion Guardians project in 2006 in response to the slaughtering of over 150 lions in the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem since 2001. Lion Guardians is a collaborative effort with the local communities of Mbirikani Group Ranch, and the Maasailand Preservation Trust. The project’s goal is to secure a sustainable future for carnivore conservation.

One of the many challenges for LWL was to figure out how the concept of lion conservation could be embraced by the Maasai - since traditional lion killing is an important part of Maasai culture and history.

Leela Haazah, Lion Guardians Director, said via email correspondence that a project like Lion Guardians depends on building trust with the local communities first. Then, the project can be framed around the culture and traditions of the local people.

And of course the foundational elements of any community conservation project is to ensure that communities feel ownership over the project through participation, while also encouraging local capacity-building, so there is a sustainability element within the project.

Haazah also shared that participation has been the project’s key to success.

Lion Guardians is a highly participatory project. Even the name was selected by the Guardians themselves.

The Lion Guardians have even given each collared lion a Maasai name.

Many of the Lion Guardians are murrans (Maasai warriors), respected individuals whose legendary lion tracking skills were previously used to find and kill lions.

Olubi killed seven lions before becoming a Guardian. Among the lions he killed was a female that was pregnant with five cubs. He regretted killing this lioness so much that he volunteered to become a Lion Guardian instead of continuing to kill carnivores.

Now, this deep knowledge of lion tracking - acquired through life as a Maasai warrior - gives the Guardians a distinct edge when it comes to surveying lion populations.

And because the Lion Guardians are well-respected, they are uniquely qualified to handle community conflicts which arise over lions.

Given that the Guardians come from the communities in which they work, and are older murrans (many have also killed lions in the past) they are very well respected by their communities and can assuage a tense situation with angry warriors seeking revenge for their dead cow.

Tradition meets technology

Lion Guardians use their exceptional lion tracking experience - along with GPS units and telemetry receivers - to monitor lions in their areas. Each Guardian has a cell phone for reporting ant significant lion sightings - or any illegal activity.

In addition, the Lion Guardians learn how to educate communities about carnivore importance and conservation - and they work to prevent further killing of lions by deterring other murrans from carrying out lion hunts.

The Guardians also play an important role in their communities by:

Informing herders where carnivores are present - so those areas can be avoided
Improving livestock enclosures (bomas)
Helping herders locate livestock that have gotten lost in the bush - especially weaker livestock - which has been a particular problem during Kenya’s drought
Becoming a Lion Guardian

Maasai who wish to become Lion Guardians are selected by an interview process that considers a variety of criteria:

Poverty levels
Physical fitness
Leadership qualities and tracking skills
General wildlife knowledge
Lion killing history
Once the applicants are narrowed down to a short list, they begin a one month volunteering period, working with experienced Lion Guardians.

Lion Guardians project expands!

The Lion Guardians project has been a success: Since the start of Lion Guardians, there have been no lions speared on Mbirikani - and the Guardians have prevented over 20 hunting parties from killing lions. This is in contrast to over 30 lions killed on adjacent ranches.

Lion Guardians has recently expanded the project to include Eselenkei Group Ranch and Olgulului Group Ranch, in response to urgent requests from communities and conservationists. Olgulului in particular experiences a lot of wildlife conflict as it borders Amboseli National Park.

Biggest challenge

Of course, one might think that the greatest obstacle faced by the Lion Guardians project is convincing Maasai warriors that protecting lions is better than killing them.

But it isn’t.

Leela Haazah explained that Lion Guardians’ biggest challenge is funding.

In most conservation organizations, the biggest challenge is finding the money to run the project. Panthera gave us our first donation and that allowed us to hire Guardians and get the equipment needed to truly run the project in the way we planned. Lion guardians would not be so successful if it wasn’t for the trust and support from Panthera.

Learn more about Lion Guardians

The Lion Guardians project is one of the first in East Africa to combine traditional knowledge with western-based technologies. It is proving to be a culturally and economically sustainable approach to conservation - and could serve as a model for traditional conservation strategies, which are sadly becoming less effective as human population grows and puts increasing pressure on wildlife.

Lions in crisis

Scientists have recently discovered that the number of lions living in Africa has dropped dramatically from as many as 200,000 to only 23,000. While the majority of these lions are living inside of National Parks, lions living outside of the parks are being being killed at an alarming rate.

The problem is that as human population expands, so does livestock production - which is how many rural Africans make a living. Not only is lion habitat shrinking, but their natural prey is losing grazing area to domestic livestock - and the few remaining lions have no choice except to prey on livestock.

The result is increased interaction between humans, domestic livestock, and lions. For most farmers, poison is a cheap and easy solution to these “interactions”. A few cents’ worth sprinkled on a carcass is enough to kill an entire pride of lions.

From Lions, Conflict & Conservation by Frank, L.G., Hemson, G., Kushnir, H. & Packer:

Conflict with humans over livestock depredation is the single most important factor causing the decline in African lion populations. With growing numbers of people and livestock throughout the continent, lions will become entirely restricted to very large or well-managed protected areas if conflict mitigation cannot be implemented on a wide scale. Ancient methods of livestock husbandry are remarkably effective at minimizing conflict, but these are rapidly being lost to modernization. Building good bomas and conscientiously tending livestock require time and effort at a time when poison is readily available and spearing lions is the only traditional test of manhood left for young warriors. As a cash economy has become increasingly relevant to rural Africans, they have lost their tolerance of predators and are likely to continue eliminating lions unless they bring in financial benefits that outweigh costs.

In fact, according to Dr. Laurence Frank, Living with Lions Project Director, unless urgent action is taken, Kenya’s lions could vanish within 10 years.

Source: GO Media - Written by Rhishja Larson - Images: flickr.com/photos/tambako/ / CC BY-ND 2.0