IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Lichtenfeld, L.L. | |
| Our shared Kingdom at Risk: Human-lion relationships in the 21st century | |
| 2005 Full Book | |
Globally, many large carnivore populations are in decline. In most cases, the persistence of these species is linked to their relationships with humans. Traditional conservation approaches tend to focus on the ecological causes of human-carnivore conflicts without fully appreciating the diverse interplay of social and ecological forces driving the outcomes. Even the case of the African lion, arguably the mot well studied large carnivore in the world, little research addresses human attitudes toward lions or the social factors influencing their actions. I focus on a multidisciplinary study of human-lion relationships in the Tarangire ecosystem of norhtern Tanzania. Specifically, I illustrate the diverse range of ecological and social factors affection both lions and the key stakeholders encountering them using structured surveys, interviews, and spoor counts as the principal methodologies. Within a single landscape, I demonstrate that a wide variety of attitudes toward lions exist among the Maasai, professional sport hutning, and photographic tourism communities based on unique assemblies of psychological, political, socio-cultural, economic, and ecological factors. In addition, I evaluate the impact of these groups on the distribution and abundance of lions. From these studies, I determine the relative positive and negative influences of each staekholder on lions indicating the key variables affecting the long-term conervation of the African lion. Finally, I propose a new, theoretical model of human-lion relationships that emphasizes the abilities of each "culture", feline and human alike, to affect one anohter via their respective tolerances of each other. This type of study has wide applications to the global community of humans and large carnivores. |
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