The project “Large Carnivore Initiative for West- and Central Africa” is an ongoing initiative by Stichting Leo. Information was available on www.largecarnivoresafrica.com, but is now available on our own website. You can access the information on this page and underlying pages. Please keep in mind that these pages act as an archive. Information may thus be outdated. Do you have any questions? Please ask them using our contact form. We are happy to answer.
To enhance readability we shorten the project name “Large Carnivore Initiative for West- and Central Africa” to LCI.
Background
The LCI has the following long-term objectives:
- Establishment and strengthening of a network for large carnivore conservation in the region, while practising human-carnivore-conflict mitigation.
- Exchange of information between partners and members of the newly established Large Carnivore Network in the region.
- Launch of media campaigns for the general public and lobbying activities with governments and policy makers.
These have been translated to the following short term objectives:
- To expand the LCI with new partners and members during an initial phase of two years.
- To exchange information on large carnivore conservation between partners and members through the website, through e-mail communication and through the organisation of annual workshops in the region.
- To prepare media campaigns for the general public in the region in order to create awareness on the need for large carnivore conservation and ecosystem restoration.
- To initiate lobbying campaigns with politicians and government to find support for large carnivore conservation and ecosystem restoration in the region.
Collaboration
The LCI network is a collaboration between:
- Leo Foundation (Netherlands)
- SPOTS (Netherlands)
- Regional Lion Network in West- and Central-Africa (ROCAL)
- African Lion Working Group (South Africa)
- Panthera Foundation
- Painted Dog Conservation (Zimbabwe)
- Ecole de Faune in Garoua (Cameroon)
- Centre of Environment and Development Studies (CEDC) of the University of Dschang (Cameroon)
- Laboratoire Ecologique of the University of Abomey (Benin)
- Department of Nature Conservation Tshwane University (South Africa)
- Institute of Environmental Sciences of Leiden University (Netherlands).
We also a collaborate with the different Specialist Groups of the IUCN (the Cat SG, the Hyena SG and the Canid SG). This initiative elaborates on the expertise of the Regional Lion Conservation Strategy for West- and Central Africa (ROCAL), supported by CML, CEDC and the Leo Foundation.
It has been financially supported by the Prince Bernhard Nature Fund.