The eastern panhandle of the Okavango Delta in Botswana is at the core of one of Africa’s remaining lion strongholds.
In collaboration with CLAWS Conservancy, PhD student Virginia Pelayo Malet is using over a decade of monitoring data to investigate lion demography, survival, movement and population connectivity across the Delta and adjacent multi-use areas. By examining how ecological and human factors such as prey availability, human-lion conflict, land-use change and landscape connectivity shape lion persistence and dispersal, the project is identifying priority areas for targeted conservation action and conflict mitigation.
The study findings will support conservation planning by Botswana’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks, contributing to national lion management and broader transboundary conservation efforts across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA). They will also help inform CLAWS Conservancy’s ongoing lion conservation and conflict mitigation work, ultimately supporting human-lion coexistence in shared landscapes.
