Coexistence in Practice: Community-Centred Solutions.

Across the landscapes where we work, living alongside lions and other large carnivores brings real challenges for both people and wildlife. Finding ways to coexist is essential.

This newsletter edition focuses on how our teams, working closely with local communities, are putting practical solutions into place; stopping the loss of wildlife and habitat, reducing the cost of living alongside large carnivores, and increasing the benefits their presence brings.

These interventions are already making a measurable difference. They are rooted in local knowledge, guided by data, and strengthened by long-standing trust. From early warning alerts to fortified livestock enclosures and community benefit programmes, this is coexistence in action: practical, collaborative, and shaped by the realities of daily life in each landscape.

Community members during the fortified livestock enclosures demonstrations in Laikipia, Kenya

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Stopping the Loss: Protecting Large Carnivores and Their Prey

Lions and other large carnivores face a range of threats. Some die indirectly when habitats are degraded or when prey populations decline due to land-use changes such as farming, settlement expansion, or poaching for meat and body parts. Others are killed directly by people, either to prevent attacks on livestock and humans or in retaliation after an attack.

To help reduce direct killing, our local community liaisons, Lion Defenders in Ruaha and Lion Extension Officers (LEOs) in Laikipia and Selous-Nyerere, work across these landscapes to lower the risk of conflict, reduce the need for retaliation, and respond quickly to minimise the impacts of conflict when it occurs.

• Early warning systems: Liaisons carry out spoor patrols and use GPS collar data to track nearby carnivores. Combining this with their knowledge of animal behaviour, they share timely alerts with livestock owners and herders, providing advice and support to move livestock, adjust grazing routes, or strengthen enclosures in response to alerts. These actions help prevent predation, the main cause of retaliatory killings, and have helped us build trust with the community.

• Poison prevention: When retaliation does occur, it is often through poisoning or snares. These methods not only kill large carnivores but also cause wider ecological losses, including to critically endangered vultures and other scavengers. To address this, we provide Poison Prevention Training for conservation practitioners, government officers, and community members. These sessions raise awareness of the human and environmental dangers of using poisons, improve rapid response capacity, and strengthen reporting channels, helping to prevent the direct loss of large carnivores and the environmental exposure of people and their livestock to dangerous poisons.

• Rapid response to conflict events - Despite the best efforts of our team and community livestock owners to prevent conflict, events such as livestock predation will still occasionally happen where people and their livestock overlap with large carnivores. Our network of community-based liaisons makes sure they respond quickly to any reports they receive, so that people feel supported and ways of preventing future conflicts are shared. The goodwill that comes from a fast and sympathetic response when people are in need is invaluable for building trust and preventing retaliatory killing.

Although conflict-related killings of lions and other large carnivores are not everyday events, the impacts of conflict between large carnivores and people are severe for both. Understanding both the causes of conflict and the conditions that prevent it is essential to reducing future risk. Our Six Key Factors analysis identifies the conditions that make coexistence possible and the drivers that can push situations towards conflict.

By combining prevention with rapid, informed response, these interventions not only avert immediate losses but also help lay the groundwork for lasting coexistence between people and large carnivores.

Left: Lion Defenders administering first aid to an injured animal after an attack. Right: Identifying lion spoor

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Reduce the Cost: Livestock Protection

Stopping loss of large carnivores is only part of the challenge, it is equally important to reduce the day-to-day costs of living alongside them. For many households, livestock represent both economic security and cultural value. When predators attack, the losses can be deeply felt, threatening livelihoods and straining community tolerance for wildlife.

One of the most effective ways to address this challenge is by fortifying livestock enclosures, whether through wire fencing, predator-deterrent lights, or strengthened traditional structures.

Herder in the field with his livestock

Fortification of livestock enclosures

A recent study led by Lion Landscapes confirmed that fortified livestock enclosures significantly reduce predation, and not just for the households that build them. They also create a spillover effect, lowering attacks in neighbouring households without fortifications. This reinforces their value not just as a household-level solution, but as a wider community asset.

We have a slightly different approach to this in each landscape we work in, tailored to needs:

• Ruaha: While few new structures have been added in recent years, Ruaha now has a well-established network of hundreds of wire-fenced enclosures. This long-running programme has enabled in-depth studies showing reductions in livestock losses of up to 94% in the short term and 60% over the long term. Current efforts focus on maintaining and repairing existing structures so they continue providing reliable protection for households across the landscape.

• Laikipia:  Here, we work to make fortified livestock enclosures more accessible by reducing the barriers to adoption. This includes partnering with eight local hardware stores to keep material (wire and poles) costs affordable, providing transport assistance, and offering technical guidance during construction. While households still contribute to material costs, these arrangements make enclosures more accessible and easier to build. Live demonstrations on market days further encourage uptake within the communities.

• Selous-Nyerere: The approach in Selous-Nyerere is shaped by the constant mobility of the people and the large herd size. Predator-deterrent lights are often the most practical option for pastoralist households. Community outreach events share best practice for use and maintenance and emphasise benefits beyond reduced predation, notably improved personal safety and better sleep quality.

By lowering the practical costs of coexistence, these interventions make living alongside large carnivores safer, more manageable, and more sustainable.

Top: Fortified livestock enclosures market day demonstration. Bottom left: Lion Extension Officer helping install a fortified livestock enclosure. Bottom right: Herder next to an installed predator deterrent light.

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Increase the Benefits: Turning Wildlife Presence into Community Value

While protecting livestock and reducing risk are crucial, the costs of living alongside lions and other large carnivores can never be fully eliminated. Ensuring that communities share in meaningful benefits is essential to lasting conservation. Lion Landscapes works to link wildlife presence to tangible, community-defined benefits through our Community Camera Trapping+ (CCT+) programme.

How It Works

Camera traps are placed across the lands of participating communities to record the presence of large carnivores and other wildlife. Each species is assigned a point value, with endangered and conflict-prone animals such as lions carrying higher values. At the end of each quarter, images are reviewed and points for the wildlife captured on camera are tallied.

These points translate into the benefits chosen by the communities themselves, and generally falling under improved healthcare, veterinary care, key infrastructure development or education opportunities.

Data-Informed Incentives for Coexistence

While points are primarily based on verified wildlife presence, final tallies are adjusted to reflect each community’s specific actions. Conservation-positive behaviours, such as reinforcing livestock enclosures, add points, while conservation-negative actions, such as wildlife poisoning, result in deductions. This system ties not only wildlife presence but also positive conservation action to tangible and much needed benefits for local communities. In this way, CCT+ not only increases community benefits, but also plays a role in stopping the loss and encourages adoption of coexistence cost-reducing interventions.

Community-Driven Benefits

Each community chooses the benefits most valuable to them, ranging from education support and healthcare supplies to water access and food. This local decision-making ensures that benefits meet genuine needs, adapting as those needs change over time. Knowing that these benefits are linked to wildlife presence and positive conservation action encourages communities to actively participate in coexistence strategies.

Recent examples show how communities have used this flexibility to meet urgent needs:

• Laikipia: after heavy rains, one community prioritised roofing materials.

• Selous-Nyerere: a pastoralist group chose a three-month supply of veterinary medicines.

• Ruaha: one community invested in vaccines for a seasonal goat disease (CCPP).

Clockwise from the top: Vetenary medicine as CCT+ benefits. Community in Laikpia choosing roofing materials as part of CCT+ benefits. CCT benefits distribution for pastoralists. Health insurance cover as CCT+ benefits.

Building a Shared Future

By increasing the benefits of living with large carnivores, CCT+ strengthens the foundation for lasting coexistence. Together with efforts to stop the loss and reduce the cost, this approach ensures that conservation is not only about conserving wildlife, but also about creating value for the people who share their lands with them.

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Looking Ahead: Strengthening What Works

Coexistence is not a single action but an ongoing commitment, one that requires conserving wildlife, addressing the challenges faced by communities, and ensuring that the presence of large carnivores brings real benefits. The stories in this edition give an example of what this looks like in practice across the landscapes where we work.

The progress we share here is only possible because of the partnerships that sustain it, from local communities and conservation colleagues to donors and government agencies. By working together, we can continue to stop the loss, reduce the cost, and increase the benefits of living alongside large carnivores, ensuring that both people and wildlife thrive for generations to come.

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THANK YOU - ASANTE SANA

As always, we thank all our partners and sponsors for their continued generous support and commitment to our work.

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