ARTICLE: Save the Lions with a Quick Annual Payment of $1-2 Billion

The African lion is on the ropes. Lions numbered close to 100,000 in 1960 and have since dropped to around 20,000, according to conservation experts. And this trend likely is accelerating, as people continue to convert wildlife habitat into grazing commons and croplands, poach lions for claws and bones to supply the illicit international animal parts trade, and poison big cats and other predators to protect their livestock. There’s been much discussion about just what it’d take to save lions. Now we have a pretty good idea: around $1 billion to $2 billion a year. That’s the conclusion, at least, of new researchpublished in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences and supported by several conservation organizations.

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