News

Cecil Summit coming in September 2016

In early September, the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), together with Panthera, is holding a workshop to consider future initiatives to conserve the African lion. The topic is urgent because numbers of lions have plummeted over the last century from an oft quoted figure of around 200,000 to nowadays closer to 20,000 and falling. The workshop, prompted by global attention given to the death of Cecil the Lion, who had been tracked for years by WildCRU, is the Cecil Summit. The Summit culminates with an open session offering the opportunity to hear the views of top lion experts and also a variety of innovative thinkers from fields such as economics, development, international relations and ethics.

The open session, at 5-7pm on Wednesday 7th September is at the Blavatnik School of Government, it will be live-streamed, and in addition to members of the University and relevant professionals, will also be open to the public. Introduced by Professor David Macdonald, Director of WildCRU, chaired by Alan Rusbridger, Principal Lady Margaret Hall and until recently Editor of the Guardian, discussants will include Achim Steiner, recently Director general of UNEP, Craig Packer, leading lion biologist, and Rory Stewart, recently Minister of the Environment and now Minister of International Development.

Please book places online http://www.ox.ac.uk/event/cecil-summit