Data Module · Conservation Economics
The Last
Lions
200,000 became 23,000. Extinct in 26 countries. They drive 8.5% of Africa’s GDP but 90% of their protected areas are underfunded. The economics of a species being allowed to disappear.
~0
Wild lions remaining (2025)
−0%
Population decline since 1900
0
African countries — lions extinct
0%
Of historical range still occupied
$0.0B
Safari tourism market (2025)
001 · The Collapse
A century of bleeding.
In 1900, roughly 200,000 lions ranged from Senegal to India. By 1970, half were gone. The decline accelerated. Between 2006 and 2018, a further 25% disappeared. The species now occupies 7% of its historical range. The curve does not flatten. It steepens.
Sources: Riggio et al. (2013), Bauer et al. (2018), Loveridge et al. (2022), IUCN CatSG (2025), LionAid (2025). \u00a9 Dancing with Lions
002 · The Last Prides
Tanzania holds half. Five countries hold 75%.
Tanzania has more lions than every other country combined. South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, and Zambia hold most of the rest. In West and Central Africa, where lions are genetically distinct from their eastern cousins and more closely related to Asiatic lions, perhaps 342 remain. The Central African Republic has 10.
Bubble size = estimated lion population. Sources: IUCN CatSG (2025), World Population Review, LionAid. \u00a9 Dancing with Lions
003 · Two Africas
Southern lions are stable. The rest are vanishing.
The continental average masks a sharp geographic split. Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe report stable or increasing populations — inside fenced, funded reserves. Everywhere else, the trajectory is down. West and Central African lions face a 67% probability of halving within two decades. The well-managed south masks the extinction happening in the north and west.
Stable / increasing
+11%Southern Africa
~10,000 lions
Botswana, Namibia, S. Africa, Zimbabwe
Fenced reserves, funded management, metapopulation strategies. But masks continental decline.
Declining
−37%East Africa
~18,000 lions
Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda
37% chance of halving in 20 years. Retaliatory killing, prey depletion, infrastructure expansion.
Critical
−67%West & Central Africa
~342 lions
Benin, Cameroon, CAR, DRC, Nigeria
67% chance of halving. Civil war, no wildlife departments, genetically distinct from east/south.
Source: Bauer et al. (PNAS 2015), LionAid 2025 Synthesis, IUCN CatSG. \u00a9 Dancing with Lions
004 · What Kills Lions
Habitat loss. Then poison. Then hunger.
Ninety-three percent of lion range has been converted to farms, roads, and cities. What remains is fragmented — corridors severed, gene flow blocked. Around villages bordering Ruaha National Park, 25 lions were killed in a single year in an area of less than 500 km². In areas managed for trophy hunting, the recommended quota is 0.5 lions per 1,000 km². Where lions have no economic value, killing runs 100 times higher.
Habitat loss & fragmentation
93% of range lost. Agriculture, infrastructure, urbanisation. Corridors severed.
Human-wildlife conflict
Retaliatory & pre-emptive killing. Poisoning livestock carcasses. ~100 killed/year in Mara alone.
Prey depletion
Bushmeat trade removes prey base. Livestock replaces wild ungulates. Lions starve or turn to cattle.
Poaching & illegal trade
Bones, claws, teeth for traditional medicine. 6,000+ skeletons exported from S. Africa to Asia in a decade.
Trophy & canned hunting
~600 lions/year. IUCN says unsustainable. Social disruption when pride males killed.
Disease & climate
Canine distemper, bovine TB. Drought collapses prey. Wildfires destroy rangeland.
Proportional estimates. Sources: IUCN, Panthera, WildCRU (Oxford), National Geographic. \u00a9 Dancing with Lions
005 · The Economics
They generate billions. They receive millions.
Africa’s safari tourism market is worth $20.5 billion and growing. Lions are the primary draw — 80% of international visitors cite wildlife as their reason for coming. Wildlife tourism supports 24 million jobs and contributes 8.5% of continental GDP. Yet it costs $1 billion a year to properly protect lion habitats. Current funding is $381 million. The gap is $619 million. The species that funds the industry is being allowed to fund its own extinction.
2025 market. Growing 6.7% CAGR.
24 million jobs. 80% cite wildlife as reason.
To secure lions in protected areas. 2018 Lindsey et al.
90% of lion protected areas underfunded.
Of total tourism revenue. 3% reaches communities.
$1M
Lifetime tourism value of one lion (Cecil estimate)
$55k
One-time trophy fee (Cecil\u2019s hunter paid)
15\u00d7
Ecotourism revenue vs trophy hunting
Sources: Grand View Research (2025), AWF/Lindsey et al. (2018), Economists at Large (2017), Wild Africa (2025). \u00a9 Dancing with Lions
006 · The Pattern
Rwanda figured out the gorilla. One thousand mountain gorillas generate $19.2 million in permit fees alone. Fifteen percent of the country’s GDP runs through tourism. The gorilla population is the only great ape that is increasing. The model is not complicated: make the animal worth more alive than dead to the people who live beside it.
Nobody has done this for the lion. Not at scale. A farmer outside Ruaha whose cow is killed by a lion does not see the $20.5 billion safari industry. The farmer sees a dead cow. The farmer poisons the carcass. Twenty-five lions die in one year in one area smaller than a single Texan ranch. The economics are local. The extinction is continental.
In the Maasai Mara, some conservation models now pay communities that show an increase in lion numbers. The Lion Guardians programme in Kenya employs Maasai warriors — the same men who once proved manhood by killing lions — to track and protect them. Namibia’s desert-adapted lions recovered from 20 individuals to over 150 through community conservancies where locals receive direct tourism revenue. These programmes work. They are also small.
The trophy hunting argument collapses on inspection. It generates 1.8% of total tourism revenue. Three percent reaches local communities. The IUCN says lion populations cannot sustain the current kill rate of 600 per year. Ecotourism generates 15 times more revenue. The argument is not about conservation. It is about who profits from the killing.
Cecil was worth $1 million alive over his lifetime in tourist revenue. His killer paid $55,000. That ratio — 18:1 — is the entire conservation economics story in two numbers. The species that built Africa’s tourism industry is being extinguished because no one has built the financial architecture to pay for its survival. The money exists. The mechanism does not.
The gorilla is the success story. The lion is the warning. Same continent. Same century. Different architecture.
007 · Connected Intelligence
Every extinction is an economic event.
Rwanda proved the model: make the animal worth more alive than dead. Mountain gorillas are the only great ape whose population is increasing. Lions could follow the same economics — if anyone built the mechanism.
Conflict zones are extinction zones. West Africa’s last 342 lions survive in countries where militias compete for territory and wildlife departments exist on paper only. Conservation requires stability.
Chinese infrastructure is being built across lion habitat. 10,000km of railways, 100,000km of roads. The corridors that connect lion populations are the same corridors that carry freight.
Sources & Attribution
Data compilation, cartography, and analysis: Dancing with Lions
© Dancing with Lions 2026