Panthera visits Lion Guardians

Last week we had the pleasure to host Jessica Craig at camp, who was representing the UK division of the Panthera. She came to find about the Lion Guardians program, and how we conserve lions by employing murrans who have hunted lions in the past to work with their communities to conserve them. And we made sure she got to visit some of the Guardians, to find out how they do it from the horse’s mouth! Here she is chatting about the program with Lion Guardians Koikai, Melubo and Lenkina and Antony, as well as Melubo’s father.

We were very glad to introduce Jessica to Melubo’s father, Mepukori Ole Nakenyu, who used to hate carnivores with a passion! The local community could not believe it when the son of this man who loved to kill carnivores became involved in lion conservation. But Melubo’s father himself was proud to tell us that he hadn’t killed a carnivore for years, and we chatted to him about conservation over tea at his boma. Here is a short video of our day.

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In exchange for tea, we agreed to give a ride to one of Melubo’s father’s wives who had a young baby that wasn’t well and needed to go to the clinic. This turned into a ride for many more people, who all seemed to need to go to the clinic too, and we left the boma with about 17 people squashed into the car! These women and their babies sat on the back seat. Everyone else was in the back with the spare tyre and tools!