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Lioness Leadership Camp: Finding Strength in Nature and in Ourselves

Lioness Leadership Camp: Finding Strength in Nature and in Ourselves

Lioness Leadership Camp: Finding Strength in Nature and in Ourselves

Lesego Mthethwa, field officer in the Carnivore Conservation Unit

 

Young women participating in the Lioness Leadership Camp near Kruger National Park

In August, a month in which we celebrate women in South Africa and mark World Lion Day,  I had the privilege of hosting the first-ever Lioness Leadership Camp for girls living in communities along the western boundary of the Kruger National Park.

These girls empowerment camps are part of the Carnivore Culture programme – a collaboration between the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), Conservation South Africa (CSA) and Scouts South Africa.  The aim is to empower young women living in communities neighbouring protected areas so they can become changemakers within their communities.

All participants in the camps hosted during August haled from the communities of Utah, Dixie, Thorndale, Seville “B” and Hluvukani which border the Manyeleti Game Reserve, Sabi Sands Nature Reserve and the Kruger National Park, all which fall within the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area. These communities are incredibly close to some of Africa’s most important wildlife areas, yet proximity to conservation does not always mean proximity to opportunity.

Many young people, particularly girls, have limited access to leadership development, mentorship, career exposure and personal growth opportunities. Social and economic barriers can also affect their confidence, aspirations and ability to see themselves in spaces such as conservation.

The Lioness Leadership Camp was created to help change that. Developed in partnership with Conservation South Africa and Koru Camp, the camps aimed to empower young women through leadership development, mentorship, personal growth and conservation awareness — while creating a safe space where they could learn, express themselves, build confidence and begin imagining the women they want to become.

But for me, this camp was also deeply personal. It was a full circle moment.

A Full-Circle Moment

My mom is from Acornhoek, and I spent much of my childhood at my grandmother’s house in the area. Some of my earliest memories are connected to this community and to the natural world around it. I always imagined that one day I would be able to give back to the same community that played such an important role in shaping my love for nature and conservation. I just never thought it would happen so soon. At 25, standing in front of young girls from a community that was part of own childhood, and having the opportunity to create a space where they could learn, dream and grow, felt extremely special. In many ways, I was looking at younger versions of myself.

Starting With a Dream

The camp began with a simple question:

What is your dream for this camp?

Each girl introduced herself, shared her deepest fear and told us what she hoped to take away from the experience. It was the beginning of watching a group of girls who arrived as strangers slowly become a community.

On the first afternoon, we headed out on our first game drive before gathering at a viewpoint for our opening ceremony. The girls received journals, chose their own power animals and created a camp flag. It was a small but meaningful beginning. Each girl had the opportunity to identify something that represented her own strength while also becoming part of a team.

In the evening, we gathered around the campfire for the Carnivore Charades Game – a  fun way of introducing the girls to carnivores and later, our journalling and gratitude circle moved the conversation from wildlife to something much closer to home: being able to speak honestly about their lives, listen to one another and realise that they were not alone in the challenges they faced.

Learning From Nature

The second day started before sunrise. We began with yoga and morning affirmations before heading out on a game drive and taking part in a nature sit spot, encouraging the girls to slow down and simply observe the world around them.

For me, this captured something important about conservation. Our work is often about monitoring, data, research and protecting species, but our connection to nature starts with something much simpler: being present enough to notice it.

We explored carnivore conservation through an interactive session and a carnivore relay race. The girls learned about the carnivores that share these landscapes and the fascinating behaviours that make each species unique.

We then created strength bracelets, with each girl choosing qualities she felt she needed to follow her dreams. These included confidence, courage, resilience and focus. The bracelets are small reminders that the qualities needed to achieve our dreams are often qualities we already carry within ourselves.

Learning About Ourselves

The camp was intentionally about more than conservation. It was also a space for conversations around menstruation, reproductive health, contraception and relationships; conversations that young women deserve to have in safe, supportive environments.

Through interactive activities, demonstrations and a pregnancy and sex myth-busting game, the girls were encouraged to ask questions and learn more about their bodies and well-being. Empowerment is not simply telling young women to “be strong”. It is giving them knowledge, creating safe spaces for them to ask questions and helping them develop the confidence to make informed decisions about their own lives.

Lessons From the Lioness

Throughout the camp, I kept coming back to the lessons we can learn from female carnivores. The lioness became the heart of the camp. Lionesses are courageous, protective and deeply connected to their pride. They care for one another and play an essential role in the survival of their families and communities.

The Cheetah reminds us of independence, speed and focus. The leopard teaches us resilience, adaptability and the ability to navigate challenging environments, and the hyaena challenges many of the assumptions we have about leadership. In hyaena societies, females hold significant social power and occupy important leadership roles. Nature constantly reminds us that strength and leadership do not have one particular shape.

As a young Black woman working in a traditionally male-dominated industry, I know that finding your place and believing in yourself can be difficult. I was fortunate to grow up with a mother who supported me despite the negative things people sometimes said about my ambitions. That support made a difference in my life, and it is the kind of support I believe we should be giving one another.

I believe that like lionesses, we should protect each other, love each other and take care of each other.

This mantra felt particularly important during Women’s Month and within the broader context of gender-based violence affecting women and girls in South Africa. Creating spaces where young women can recognise their value, understand their boundaries and support one another is incredibly important.

A Promise to Their Future Selves

On the final morning, the girls were asked to write a letter to their future selves.

The question was simple:  Where would you like to be in 10 years?

After three days of conversations, wildlife encounters, laughter, learning and moments of vulnerability, they had the opportunity to imagine the women they wanted to become. During the pledge and departure ceremony, each girl made a promise to herself, and that, for me, was the heart of the entire experience. The girls arrived with fears, dreams and questions. They left having spent three days discovering that they are capable of more than they may have realised.

Lioness Leadership Camp empowering girls through conservation, mentorship and leadership development

Creating Space for the Next Generation

The Lioness Leadership Camp reminded me that conservation is about so much more than protecting wildlife, it is also about people and the communities who live alongside these landscapes. If we want young people to see conservation as something they can be part of, we have to create opportunities for them to experience it, understand it and see themselves within it, but the camp was never about telling these girls that they all have to become conservationists. It was about showing them that they have choices, conservation needs scientists, field officers and ecologists, but it also needs educators, lawyers, accountants, communicators, marketers, photographers, entrepreneurs and community leaders. Sometimes all a young person needs is someone to tell them: “There is a place for you here.”

I hope the Lioness Leadership Camp gave these girls that feeling.

I am incredibly grateful to Koru Camp for their support, and belief, in this project.

To return to a community that shaped my childhood and give back through something I love so deeply is a privilege I will never take for granted, and perhaps the greatest lesson of all is that sometimes, when we create space for young girls to dream, we don’t just empower the next generation of women. We help them realise that they were powerful all along.

South Africa’s Natural Heritage Needs Support

South Africa’s Natural Heritage Needs Support

South Africa’s Natural Heritage Needs Support

Eleanor Momberg

 

Threatened African carnivores protected through conservation efforts in South Africa

South Africa’s natural heritage requires a commitment from all to ensure that it is protected for future generations.

Without a healthy environment, neither people, plants or animals would survive.  This includes the protection and conservation of valuable water resources, the air we breathe and the soil required to sustain life.

Key to South Africa’s natural heritage are species under threat of extinction.  African Wild Dogs, Cheetahs and Lions are part of the living heritage that makes Africa unique.

“These species are deeply connected to our identity and to the landscapes for which Africa is internationally recognised. They are also important components of healthy, functioning ecosystems. Protecting them is therefore about much more than saving individual animals – it is about protecting the natural systems and wildlife that future generations should inherit,” says the EWT’s Carnivore Conservation Unit manager, Derek van der Merwe.

The EWT’s work to protect threatened wildlife has carnivore conservation as an important part of our history.

“Through the Carnivore Conservation Unit (CCU), we have spent decades combining science, field conservation, technology and partnerships to understand populations, reduce threats and create safer, connected landscapes for carnivores.

“This long-term investment is now delivering tangible results. As populations of African Wild Dogs and Cheetahs have increased in South Africa, our work has evolved from protecting remaining populations to helping restore species to areas from which they have been lost,” says van der Merwe.

The fenced reserve cheetah population has increased by an average of 8.8% annually since 2012. Last year it increased 19%. There are some great stats in the conservation matters article that Kelsey made in April! But it is important to note that increases has only really occurred in South Africa’s managed fenced reserves (metapopulation) outside of that it has been declining.

The contribution of each of the three species to South Africa’s heritage is evidenced through the presence of lions, Cheetah and African Wild Dog not only folklore and storytelling, or in symbols, but of all three species in art, tourism and in the country’s conservation identity.

While lions are symbols of strength, leadership, courage, and wilderness across Africa,   Cheetahs are Africa’s most iconic speed specialists representing open landscapes and ecological processes that have defined African savannas for thousands of years. African Wild Dogs, as one of Africa’s most unique and Endangered carnivores,  are know for their extraordinary social structure, cooperation, and family bonds making them a distinctive part of Africa’s natural identity.

Lions, Cheetahs and African Wild Dogs belong to our landscapes, our stories, our sense of identity, and our shared responsibility to future generations. Protecting them is about ensuring that the next generation inherits a wild Africa, not just memories of one.

These are species that require support through individual, group and national actions, including awareness, direct conservation and resource allocation.

Beyond Fences: How Vulture Safe Zone Alliance may be the missing piece to halting the rapid decline of Africa’s vulture populations

Beyond Fences: How Vulture Safe Zone Alliance may be the missing piece to halting the rapid decline of Africa’s vulture populations

Beyond Fences: How Vulture Safe Zone Alliance may be the missing piece to halting the rapid decline of Africa’s vulture populations

Danielle du Toit, Field Officer for the Birds of Prey Unit

 

Vulture Safe Zones protecting threatened vultures across farms, reserves and communal land

left: The EWT’s Ronelle Visagie handing over VSZ signboards

The image conjured up of nature conservation in Africa usually includes a reserve, fences, and rangers in camouflage uniforms. Powerful as that may be, Africa’s vultures need more.

Vulture populations across the continent have declined drastically over the last three decades, and several of these species are on the brink of extinction. The leading driver of these declines is poisoning, both direct and indirect. Poisons laid out on a carcass for various reasons can kill dozens, if not hundreds, of birds in a single feeding event. Add electrocution and collisions on power lines, drowning in cement reservoirs, unintentional poisoning through lead ammunition or veterinary drug contamination in carcasses, and the loss of nesting habitat, and what arises is an array of threats that turn up, either in total or individually on any type of land across Southern Africa.

The problem is that vultures on the wing can cover hundreds of kilometres in a day. They may roost on a power line on one property, bathe in a dam on another, and feed on a carcass on a third, crossing communal land, commercial farms, formally protected areas and even country borders. The fences between these properties play no role in where they decide to go, and yet, most of our approaches use protected areas as a core principle in the conservation of these species.

As such, conservationists need to address threats to these vultures at a transboundary landscape level to truly halt their declines, which has felt like an impossible task. Until now.

Vulture Safe Zones: They answer to landscape level threat reduction

A Vulture Safe Zone (VSZ) is an appropriately sized area where targeted conservation measures deal with the key threats facing the vulture species associated with that area. The goal is to support the survival of wild populations, by reducing threats, thus creating a landscape in which their numbers are sustained and, ultimately, increase.

The concept arose to address the Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug (NSAID) poisoning which caused the Asian Vulture Crisis. The foundational principles of these VSZs were to reduce the threat of NSAID poisoning in vultures through regional bans of vulture-toxic NSAIDs and shifts to safer alternatives. However, the threats to African Vultures are varied and require different mitigation approaches.

The requirements for the African context are:

  • The area must be poison-free, and carcasses must not contain harmful contaminants like veterinary drugs or lead;
  • Power lines and associated infrastructure must be retrofitted to reduce collision and electrocution risk;
  • Reservoirs are covered or modified so birds, and other wildlife can’t fall in and drown and;
  • Breeding and roosting sites are protected from disturbance.

The core feature of a VSZ is that it isn’t defined by land tenure. A protected area like a national park or a private reserve can be a VSZ, but so can a patchwork of livestock farms, or tracts of communal grazing land. What counts is whether the threats are being dealt with. More than two million hectares of southern Africa are now covered by VSZs, and yet the approach remains one of the most overlooked tools we have.

Vulture Safe Zone Alliance connecting safer landscapes for vultures across southern Africa

This image shows the spatial layout of VSZs. Black = Areas of high vulture importance (breeding or roosting sites) where formal protection to reduce risk of habitat disturbance or unsustainable development could be applied. Blue = Surrounding spaces where targeted threat mitigation must be prioritised and reduce likelihood of disturbances that can leak into core areas, but don’t necessarily require formal protection. Yellow = general demarcated area for VSZ certification under varying land use types. Threats should be identified and addressed as needed. 

 

The EWT is among a small group of NGOs that have spearheaded VSZs in South Africa, and our two flagship zones show how the approach works. The Karoo Vulture Safe Zone Project has more than 730,000 ha committed to becoming Vulture Safe, including three national parks and the Mountain Zebra Camdeboo Protected Environment. The Karoo VSZ has been built farm by farm as more and more landowners commit to reducing threats on their own land.

The Kalahari VSZ covers more than 271,000 ha of Vulture Safe land and monitoring there suggests that the African White-backed Vulture breeding numbers in the area are increasing. At the beginning of 2026, years of work with SANParks culminated in Mokala National Park being certified the first South African national park as a Vulture Safe Zone. In partnership with Eskom, we have ensured that power lines in the conservation area are safe, while SANParks Honorary Rangers has donated nets to cover dams and prevent drownings.

map showing The EWT Karoo & Kalahari VSZs, and other areas intended as future VSZs.

The EWT Karoo & Kalahari VSZs, and other areas intended as future VSZs.

The lesson from this is simple: vultures are conserved by relationships as much as they are by science.

Threats are reduced when farmers agree to cover farm dams or stop using poisons for predator control, when park management mitigates unsafe infrastructure, utility companies commit to retrofit powerlines to reduce collision or electrocution risk, or when communities report poaching or illegal activities. Science tells us where and what the threats are, but it is the actions by the people on the ground that actively reduce them and support the populations of vultures there.

The Vulture Safe Zone Alliance models the kind of collaboration that can achieve the landscape level threat mitigation needed to conserve vultures across the region.

The protected area model asks the question of how to safeguard a portion of land to conserve the species and processes that depend on it, but vultures force us to change our approach towards making a whole landscape survivable. A bird that ranges across dozens of properties can’t be saved by one well-managed reserve if it is poisoned, electrocuted or drowned the moment it leaves. Conserving vultures means tackling threats wherever they occur, whoever owns the land and however it is used.

Until recently, VSZs across the region were implemented by different organisations, each with its own approach. That flexibility drove innovation, but it also raised fair questions in conservation circles about what makes a safe zone genuinely safe, and whether zones are large enough to matter. This is where the Vulture Safe Zone Alliance (VSZA) comes in.

The EWT is one of nine organisations from six countries that have joined forces to solidify VSZs as the foundational approach to conserving our continents vultures. The VSZA’s first major product is a set of shared Vulture Safe Zone Guidelines, giving the region a common framework for identifying, establishing and monitoring these areas.

The members of the Alliance all agree that our conservation actions need to be aligned with the spatial utilisation of these birds and not driven by boundaries on the ground, and that can only happen through connected efforts, sharing what works (or what doesn’t), and linking safe spaces across large landscapes.

Vultures do not distinguish between protected or unprotected land, and neither should conservation. This reframing is what makes VSZs powerful, and the Alliance is what lets them scale. It treats farmers, communities and land managers as partners in conservation rather than obstacles to it. It gives every zone a shared standard, so results can be compared and trusted. And by linking zones, it starts building corridors of safety that match the spatial movements and land use of vultures, rather than cornering off certain areas in the hopes they might remain there.

It is not a silver bullet. Intentional sentinel and belief-based poisoning remain a serious problem in parts of the region, and no zone can fully stop a determined poisoner, because the sad reality is that all illegal activities continue despite the existence of the law. But the alternative, protecting isolated pockets of land while the spaces between them stay riddled with threats, is not working.

What does this Alliance mean for the public?

Vultures do work that people rarely notice. They clear carcasses quickly, helping to limit the spread of disease and the risks that decaying carcasses pose to livestock and communities. A BirdLife study valued the ecosystem services vultures provide in southern Africa at about $1.8 billion a year. When vultures disappear, someone pays the bill.

You can help by:

  • Reporting suspected poisonings and injured birds your local provincial conservation authority or the EWT.
  • If you own or manage land: cover reservoirs, use lead-free ammunition and make sure carcasses are free of contaminants and harmful drugs.
  • If you own property or farm in areas where vultures frequent, talk to our Birds of Prey team about getting involved in our VSZ projects by contacting danielled@ewt.org
  • Report injuries or mortalities caused by powerlines to our Wildlife and Infrastructure Unit at wep@ewt.org

The Alliance won’t turn the tide overnight. But for the first time, the region has a shared plan, a common standard and a growing network built on what the species needs to survive.

Community members working together to protect Afrian Vultures

Every Spot Counts: The Greater Kruger Cheetah Census 2026/27

Every Spot Counts: The Greater Kruger Cheetah Census 2026/27

Every Spot Counts: The Greater Kruger Cheetah Census 2026/27

By Olivia Sievert, manager of the EWT’s Cheetah Conservation Project

 

Wild cheetah in Greater Kruger identified through its unique coat pattern.

Everyone loves seeing a Cheetah in the wild, but did you know that behind every sighting lies an important scientific opportunity? A simple photograph can help us identify an individual, track its movements, and, when combined with thousands of other records, build a picture of an entire population.

This is the idea behind the Greater Kruger Cheetah Photographic Census, a collaborative initiative between the Endangered Wildlife Trust and SANParks, to improve our understanding of Cheetahs across the Greater Kruger landscape.

Building on decades of photographic monitoring

Photographic censuses of large carnivores have a long history in the Kruger. Citizen-science photographic surveys for African Wild Dogs began in 1988/89, with Cheetahs being first included in 1990. Further Cheetah censuses followed in 2004/05 and 2009/10, before the most recent, in 2021/2022.

The principle is simple: Cheetahs have individually distinctive coat patterns, allowing researchers to recognise the same animal from photographs taken at different times and places. Tourists, guides, staff, and other members of the public can therefore become part of the monitoring effort simply by submitting photographs of the cheetahs they encounter.

The last census in 2021/2022 received 196 Cheetah submissions, of which 151 were suitable for individual identification. From these photographs researchers were able to identify 86 individuals, while statistical modelling estimated approximately 116 Cheetahs across the national park.  These numbers, however, also highlight why the next census is so important. This population estimate was the lowest recorded to date, yet this apparent decline cannot simply be interpreted as a decline in the Cheetah population. The 2021/2022 census had fewer submissions, reduced tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic and introduced AI-assisted identification. Meaning a mixture of low reporting and a change in methods likely also contributed to our recorded population decline.

In other words, we have valuable information, but we still have important questions to answer.

Why Greater Kruger matters

The Greater Kruger landscape is one of the most important remaining strongholds for Cheetahs in southern Africa. As part of the wider Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA), which includes the Kruger National Park, the Associated Private Nature Reserves, and adjoining conservation areas in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, it forms part of a vast connected conservation landscape spanning nearly 100,000 km². Large, connected landscapes are essential for maintaining viable wildlife populations as they allow animals to move between suitable habitats and host large enough populations to maintain genetic diversity without intervention.

The GLTFCA represents roughly three percent of the Cheetah’s remaining global range and contains some of the largest protected areas available to the species in southern Africa. Within South Africa, the Greater Kruger landscape is particularly significant, encompassing approximately 47% of the country’s protected Cheetah habitat. Yet the most recent population estimate suggests that it supports only around 17% of South Africa’s remaining wild Cheetah population.

Large, connected protected areas are critical for the long-term conservation of Cheetahs. The species naturally occurs at low densities, requires extensive areas over which to hunt, disperse, establish territories and avoid competing predators. Additionally, Cheetah are vulnerable to increasing human pressures beyond protected areas where we have seen some of the most drastic population declines in the last 15 years. Therefore, ensuring that protected landscapes such as the Greater Kruger continue to support healthy Cheetah populations will require informed and targeted conservation action.

But, effective management depends on reliable information. We need to understand how many Cheetahs occur across the landscape, where they are found, how they move between areas, and which threats may be limiting their population growth. The Greater Kruger Cheetah Census aims to provide this knowledge, creating the foundation for evidence-based conservation and helping to guide management decisions for one of South Africa’s most important wild Cheetah populations.

Wild cheetah in Greater Kruger identified through its unique coat pattern.

What do we know, and what don’t we know?

We know that Cheetahs generally occur at low densities, have large ranges and can move considerable distances. During the 2021/2022 census, one individual was recorded as having a potential range of more than 810 km² and moving more than 90 km between sightings.

We also know that photographic monitoring works. But we do not yet have a sufficiently consistent, landscape-scale baseline to answer some of the most fundamental conservation questions confidently. How many Cheetahs are there? Is the population stable, increasing or declining? How many cubs are surviving? How long do individuals live? Are Cheetahs making use of the wider landscape? And what threats are impacting the population? All these questions are imperative to answer if we want to properly conserve the Cheetah across the Greater Kruger.

Turning photographs into conservation action

The 2026/27 census aims to build on this history by bringing together new photographic submissions with historical photographs, camera-trap images, ranger records, existing monitoring data, and other available information. Individual Cheetahs will be identified using AI-assisted coat-pattern recognition, with manual verification where necessary.

The goal is not simply to produce another population estimate. We want to establish a reliable baseline for the Greater Kruger Cheetah population, understand how individuals move and survive across the landscape, identify important core population areas and potential connectivity routes, and improve our understanding of threats. This information can ultimately support more targeted threat reduction, better coordination between conservation areas, and adaptive management.

You can help

If you are visiting Greater Kruger landscape between 1 September 2026 and 31 August 2027, you can take part in the census.

If you see a Cheetah, take photographs from a safe and respectful distance. Where possible, photographs of both the left and right sides of the animal are especially valuable because they help us distinguish individuals accurately.

When submitting your sighting, please include:

  • The photographs of the Cheetah(s);
  • The date of the sighting;
  • The approximate location, GPS coordinates, road number, or nearest landmark;
  • The number of Cheetahs observed; and
  • Any additional observation.

Every photograph adds another piece to the puzzle. A single image may help identify an individual; repeated sightings can reveal movements and survival; and thousands of photographs collected over time can help us understand the population as a whole.

Your next cheetah sighting could help shape the future of Cheetah conservation in Greater Kruger: Every Spot Counts.

Cheetah photographed during the Greater Kruger Cheetah Census 2026/27.

** This work is being done in partnership with SANParks. Funding is provided by DERTOUR Foundation and SANParks Honorary Rangers Fund with support from Ford Wildlife Foundation, SANParks Honorary Rangers and Tech4Conservation.

EWT team returns to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park to conduct lion research

EWT team returns to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park to conduct lion research

EWT team returns to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park to conduct lion research

 

EWT researchers conducting the Kgalagadi lion population census in South Africa.

An Endangered Wildlife Trust team has returned to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park to conduct this year’s lion population census, helping SANParks monitor and better understand the lion population in the park.

The lion monitoring project started on 1 August and ends on 31 October 2026. In 2025, the team had also spent three months in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, which spans South Africa and Botswana, to collected the first tranche of data about the lions living in this desert landscape.

In the next three months, the EWT team, supported by SANParks, will determine how many lions are estimated to live in the South African part of the Transfrontier Conservation Area, their demographics, and their spatial distribution within the park. A team from Kalahari Research and Conservation are undertaking a similar project on the Botswana side of the Transfrontier Conservation Area.

Repeated annual surveys will form the base for subsequent, less frequent long-term monitoring of the Kgalagadi lion population, the second-largest free-roaming lion population in South Africa.

Understanding the status and performance of this population is central to national lion conservation planning and to the long-term management of the broader transboundary ecosystem. It supports SANParks in the effective management of lion populations within its parks.

The core team comprises four women and two men. It is led by the EWT Carnivore Conservation Unit’s data analyst, Alison Govaerts, who is supported by EWT project manager Marnus Roodbol. Also on the team are EWT field technicians Nonkuleleko Mokobong, Lesedi Leope, Sabelo Mahlangu and Lizaene Cornwell.

Field researchers monitoring lions across the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

The team are using photographs and camera trap footage to individually identify each encountered lion (excluding lion under one-year-old) using their unique whisker pattern.

At the end of the three-month period, the results and reports of the surveys by the EWT and Kalahari Research and Conservation will be combined to estimate lion numbers across the whole Transfrontier Park. As the lions move freely across borders, some individuals will be identified by both teams. By combining the survey data, possible double counting of these lions will be avoided.

Through the monitoring of existing populations, we are able to keep track of population dynamics, which provides a powerful tool to inform management strategies and to identify potential threats in time. The protection and conservation of lions remains a priority for this apex predator that plays a central role in keeping the balance within ecosystems by maintaining a healthy prey base, and keeping the meso-predator population in check. Without lions, prey populations would risk overgrazing the landscape.

Lions are a flagship species, and are a popular sighting as a key member of the Big Five during safaris. Thus, their economic importance.

Lion are also culturally important as they symbolise power, strength, and leadership, and are embedded in many practices, ranging from representing totems and clans, to being a symbol or name for sports teams, or play a role in spiritual and traditional customs.

In partnership with SANParks, and with the support of the Lion Recovery Fund and private donors, the EWT is taking a important step forward for lion conservation.

EWT Carnivore Conservation Unit carrying out lion population surveys.