Read the recent article by the filmmaker, written shortly after filming was wrapped:

“Having lions in a system is incredibly important, they are the best managers of wildlife populations and are fundamental to the ecological functioning of a system. Without them, everything becomes disrupted.   But in the past 5 decades we’ve seen a decline in lion numbers. Every time an assessment is done, their numbers keep pegging downward and I’ve seen no evidence that there’s been a change in a positive direction.”

These are the sobering words of Dr. Paul Funston, world-renowned lion conservationist and my partner and expert guide for the next 2 months on the road. Together with our film crew, we’re leaving a cold, wet Cape Town winter behind us and heading north into Namibia on a journey across Southern Africa to begin production on my new project: A Place For Us, a documentary film and multi-episode podcast series that takes an in-depth look at Africa’s remaining lion populations, the mounting threats they face and the work being done on the ground to stem this tide. The journey that Paul and I have carefully mapped out will take us from the desert lions living on the extreme arid fringes of the Skeleton Coast, across the Kunene Region, around the Okavango Delta, up into Zambia’s vast Kafue National Park, Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park and down into the Kruger. 

Our mission begins with a simple question: “What place is there for lions in Africa’s future?” A question brought on by an alarming set of facts. Africa has the fastest-growing human population on the planet, which is expected to double to over 2.5 billion people in the next 25 years. By stark contrast, in the past five decades, 75% of Africa’s lions have been decimated, with only 20,000 remaining today. Climate change, habitat loss, conflict and poaching are among the major factors contributing to their demise, and as our human population continues to grow, so too does our impact on the environment and our wildlife. So what then does our landscape look like today and what work is being done on the ground to ensure that both people and lions have a secure and promising place in Africa’s future?

Driving across the wind-swept dunes of the Skeleton Coast, we arrive at Mowe Bay, a remote research station and home for the past three decades to Philip “Flip” Stander, the man Paul describes as a brother and “the real desert lion.” Flip arrived in the desert on a hunch that there were lions that had moved to the coast and had adapted to living here. After 2 years of searching, he found them and has since dedicated his life to the study and data-gathering of this remarkable population. And it’s here, along these hostile shores where we’ve chosen to begin our story, a vision of life on the extreme fringes, exiled in a hostile land, clinging to survival at any cost. Is this perhaps the future facing lions? This is the question we ourselves face as we move inland, across the Kunene’s arid deserts between the Skeleton Coast and Etosha. Here, we meet with Dr. John Heydinger and the Lion Rangers team, a group of 54 men and women bridging this critical gap, monitoring lions and ensuring they and the surrounding communities are kept safe from one another. 

We’ve arrived in the midst of the dry season compounded by a 2-year drought that makes it evident that life here is extremely challenging for people and wildlife alike, a story that echoes throughout our journey. From farming and cattle-grazing to stripping forests and burning trees for coal, people are on the move, chasing what resources they can find for themselves and their livestock, often times at the cost of protected areas and wildlife. And inasmuch as this story is about lions, it is at its core our human story and our own future that puts everything else at stake. We will hear it said many times on this trip, that lion conservation and human-lion conflict isn’t so much about lions at all, it’s about people. It’s about communities, farmers, conservationists, governments, national parks and protected areas. Lions just happen to be caught in the middle. 

This idea is what drives our story and leads us on to many key places across Southern Africa, to meet with critical organizations, communities, leaders and conservationists who understand that to solve our wildlife problems, we need to address the human ones from the ground up. Education, female empowerment, economic upliftment and true ownership are, in the words of young Namibian conservationist Tanaka Muradzikwa “needed to be understood and addressed from household to household, if you really want to see growth and change.”

As our journey continues east, so the pressures facing lions evolve and arguably worsen. We follow the rainfall arc across the sub-continent and as the rainfall increases, so too does the human population and all the problems that brings. Here, we uncover the ever-growing problem of bushmeat and body part poaching, something which intensifies the further east we go and the easier the trade routes to international markets become. At the center of all this, we talk with some of the Kruger National Park’s top anti-poaching officials and wardens in the north, those on the frontlines of this dangerous and developing concern.

But despite the myriad of growing issues and pressures, our story is a hopeful one. Conservationists all agree that they wouldn’t be doing what they do if they didn’t have hope. From inspirational tribal leaders like Mod Masedi in Botswana’s Habu Village, to young and inspiring conservation leaders like Dr. Moreangels Mbizah who understand what is needed from the communities themselves. Uplifting education programs including Children in the Wilderness and community-focused organizations like the Kwando Carnivore Project, Claws and Musekese Conservancy, we find hope and inspiration in abundance across Southern Africa and I am immensely grateful to all those who have so generously become a part of this collective story. 

As we watch the sun setting across the vast Kruger landscape, perched on a hilltop in Letaba, Paul offers some final thoughts: ”A lot of eminent conservationists have said that Africa’s lions will be extinct by 2030 or 2040. But, I don’t subscribe to that notion. I’m confident that we will continue to have lions roaming around in the Savannas of Africa, but in what places, in what numbers and at what cost? It’s going to take a huge change in what we’re seeing in the landscapes out there for that to happen, but if we pick the right places and we invest in them, we can secure lion populations and even future-proof them against the threats that are to come.”

I am extremely proud of our work on this so far and offer enormous thanks to Brian Courtenay from the Southern African Conservation Trust, who helped me nurture and develop my idea from the beginning and who had the wisdom and genius to introduce me to Dr. Paul Funston, the depth and breadth of whose knowledge, insight and experience has helped take A Place For Us to levels beyond my expectations. But here we are today, extremely proud and excited to present our story to you. 

- Bruce Donnelly