Conclusion

The sensitivity analysis implies that the small populations of lions are very fragile to risk factors like abnormal sex ratios, increased community kills and disease epidemics with high impact, but at certain critical levels, these risk factors have less effect on the population. This therefore calls for rigorous management actions to be undertaken to keep the factors at their lowest levels.

Because of this, Uganda Wildlife Authority has entered into partnership with various stakeholders and management interventions have been put in place. Collaborations have been formed with academic institutions like Makerere University through the Lions Project, conservation NGOs like CARE, external donor agencies like the Federation of Dutch Zoos's help that has funded the lion project activities between 1997 and 2004; the African Lion Working Group through sharing of information. The plan for these collaborative management interventions is to improve the survival rates of lions, so that an increase in the populations can be achieved. This has so far been done and will still be through research, community involvement in lion conservation, and donor support is a critical factor in this. Above all, the Uganda Wildlife Authority would like to emulate the experiences of the neighboring countries in the Southern and Eastern Africa, where lion populations are economically self-sustaining.

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