In northern Tanzania, shrinking habitats have caused people and wildlife to live closer together than ever before. As a result, lions and other large carnivores often find easy meals in the form of domestic livestock. The death of a cow, goat, or sheep represents a serious loss for rural families in the region, who may kill lions in revenge. 
Tanzania People & Wildlife (TPW) partners with local communities to co-create innovative solutions that help people and wildlife thrive together. One of these inventions is Living Walls—nature-friendly corrals that keep livestock safe at night. Community members build Living Walls by planting live Commiphora trees as fence posts and reinforcing them with chain-link fencing. Living Walls protect livestock with a 99.9% success rate. To date, no lions have been killed at homesteads with Living Walls. Living Walls also revitalize habitats, improve landscape connectivity, increase local climate change resilience, and uplift the lives of rural families. TPW’s Warriors for Wildlife teams monitor Living Wall conditions to ensure that the structures remain effective over time.
With support from the DierenPark Amersfoort Wildlife Fund, TPW will dramatically scale its Living Walls program in West Kilimanjaro. In this landscape, lions face increased threats due to high levels of conflict with people. While building new Living Walls, TPW will provide conservation education to approximately 3,000 community members to improve tolerance for living with wildlife.
West Kilimanjaro’s lion population is fragile and in the early stages of re-establishing itself. This critical project will help ensure the long-term survival of these amazing big cats in the landscape.
Do you want to contribute to the protection of lions? Donate to DierenPark Amersfoort Wildlife fund!
Photo’s: Tanzania People & Wildlife – Laly Lichtenfeld and Felipe Roderiguez
