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“Our house is on fire.” Those were the words of climate activist Greta Thunberg in 2019, imploring all of us to do far more to address the existential threat posed by climate change. Her powerful words underlined the urgency of action and made many of us wonder what we could do to build a better future. In 2020, the Living Planet Report provided more grim warnings, this time around biodiversity loss. It revealed that on average, vertebrate population sizes had crashed by over two-thirds since 1970 – a staggering decline within many of our lifetimes. The primary driver was destruction and conversion of natural habitat. This mirrors what we see for lions: their numbers have nearly halved in 20 years, restricted to increasingly small and fragmented populations, with habitat loss the most important threat. To address the intertwined threats of climate change and biodiversity loss we need to safeguard natural habitat, which stores carbon, supports incredible biodiversity, and ultimately underpins the health of our global society. Natural resources are particularly important for the world’s most vulnerable people, who could sustainably use them as a way out of poverty. But currently economic incentives, at both the local and global level, tend to reward habitat destruction rather than protection. This must change. The scale of the challenge can seem overwhelming, but it is up to us to change the future. Firstly, we must reduce over-consumption. On our part, we have focused on being energy efficient, cutting charcoal use (a local driver of habitat destruction) and limiting our flights. Our field camps are very low impact, usually off-grid and powered by solar panels. Reduction is the first step towards limiting our environmental impact, but we must go further. We are therefore thrilled to announce that we have now gone 100% ‘climate positive’, using the groundbreaking ‘Lion Carbon’ model to offset double our carbon emissions annually. Lion Carbon is an innovative premium carbon offset that simultaneously addresses climate change, landscape-level biodiversity conservation and local empowerment. It has been developed with BioCarbon Partners (BCP), one of Africa’s leading forest carbon offset developers, based on their REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) approach. BCP works in partnership with the Zambian Government and local communities to conserve forests under 30-year agreements. The value of carbon secured in those forests is calculated using the highest Verified Carbon Standards, and sold to companies and organisations who want to offset their own emissions. This is generating a new and highly valuable income stream for sustainable development and forest conservation, which is particularly important since COVID-19 revealed the fragility of relying on external users such as tourists. BCP’s gold-standard carbon offsetting has already had impressive results. It has protected over half a billion trees across a million hectares of community forest, and is reducing emissions equivalent to 1.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. That is the same as removing around 290,000 cars from the road a year. In 2020-2021, BCP’s REDD+ programmes generated over US$4 million in direct payments to 12 chiefdoms for the protection of wildlife habitat, improving the lives of over a quarter of a million people. This makes BCP’s REDD+ projects the biggest in the world in terms of community beneficiaries. Providing fresh water, community benefits and sustainable conservation agriculture techniques. Photo credit: BioCarbon Partners But carbon offsets could conceivably lead to ‘empty forests’, with incentives to secure carbon but not biodiversity. To address this, wildlife conservation is a key component of the Lion Carbon model, with BCP working closely with government departments, local communities and Lion Landscapes to monitor, conserve and help regenerate wildlife in the community forests, with a particular focus on lions as flagship species. Lion Carbon activities are helping safeguard a vast biodiversity corridor in Zambia’s Luangwa Valley, connecting Four Key Landscapes for Conservation and regenerating wildlife populations in some of the most important lion range left on the planet. Additionally, a small percentage of the revenue from Lion Carbon helps fund our wider work to conserve lions in key landscapes across Africa. Investing in Lion Carbon means that people and organisations can offset their carbon, helping limit climate change, secure lions and other biodiversity, and generate a reliable income stream for local people. But rather than just ask others to invest in Lion Carbon, we decided that we should lead by example and do it ourselves. We are therefore exited that as of this International Day of Forests, Lion Landscapes is now 100% ‘climate positive’, using Lion Carbon to offset double our annual carbon emissions. We are the first conservation organisation to do so, but hope we will be the first of many. The 2020 Living Planet Report highlighted that ‘World leaders must take urgent action to protect and restore nature as the foundation for a healthy society and a thriving economy.’ We agree, but such action should not be restricted world leaders. Every one of us, including individuals, grassroots organisations, large NGOs and businesses, can and should take urgent action. Lion Landscapes’ role in the development of Lion Carbon, and our move to ‘100% climate positivity’, are important steps towards our vision of fighting climate change by helping to build vast healthy ecosystems with thriving human communities and biodiversity, including the African lion. Climate change is a global problem that requires individual action. Every person reading has the power to do a ton of good for our planet and each other. If you are thinking of offsetting your own Carbon footprint, consider using Lion Carbon for our planet and wildlife. Happy International Day of Forests! Lion Carbon Funding The Lion Carbon conservation activities have so far been supported by The Darwin Initiative, University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, the Lion Recovery Fund and National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative. Revenue from the sale of Premium Lion Carbon offsets will gradually decrease dependency on donor funds and make these wildlife conservation activities sustainable.

Are you Crazy for Cubs? Read on to learn more about their behaviour, how collaring for coexistence supports them and finally, our brand new Kids for Cubs clothing! Growing up in a lion pride Lion Cubs are some of the cutest residents we know, but how much do you know about their lives, growing up from tiny fur balls into the healthy subadults we see roaming the field? Well, let’s start at the very beginning! Following a gestation period of around four months, a pregnant lioness will leave her pride and retreat into a thick impenetrable habitat to give birth. Here, she keeps her vulnerable cubs safely hidden for up to six weeks before they are introduced to the rest of the pride. Newborn Lion hiding in the bushes, by Antonia Leckie. Lion cubs are born with blue eyes that slowly turn to amber. Upon arrival, other lactating females in a pride are very welcoming to newcomers; they will suckle each other's cubs regularly for the first 6-7 months, showing no favouritism for their own offspring. This generosity may seem strange, but as lionesses in the pride are highly related, each female enhances the survival of her own genes by helping to raise her relative's offspring. This communal suckling behaviour has therefore been selected over time as it increases the chance that an individual lions’ genes will be passed on to the next generation. Related adult females within a pride tend to give birth at similar times, with adults synchronising their fertility cycles so that they can all raise their young together. Mothers can therefore rely on one another to suckle and protect the young. Predation is a big threat to vulnerable newborns, but there is safety in numbers; there are so many cubs a predator can eat at one time! Even still, over half of African lion cubs don’t make it past their first year. When young male lions take over a pride, they will challenge another male for control and kill all the cubs, bringing the females into estrus again and maintaining the synchronisation. Whilst growing up in the protection of the maternal pride, lion cubs spend most of their day playing, wrestling and stalking each other through the landscape. Although it may sound like fun and games, this play is vital to help them develop the hunting skills that they will need later in life to support themselves and their future pride. As they grow bigger and stronger, these skills are further developed through joining their mother for hunting trips. Lion cubs wrestling under the protection of their maternal pride. This behaviour is vital to allow the effective development of hunting skills. As cubs age into adolescents, females tend to stay in their natal range, only leaving the pride if there is a short supply of food. In contrast, once subadult males reach around 3 years, they will spend more and more time away from their maternal pride, eventually leaving to find territories of their own. These males will have a much better chance of survival if they can stick together in groups called coalitions during this difficult dispersal period when they will have to avoid areas where they are not wanted by people, and territorial male lions wherever lions are still tolerated. Lion cubs with their mothers, by Chege Amos at Loisaba. Related adult females within a pride tend to give birth at similar times. Collaring for coexistence Livestock raised across Laikipia can occasionally become an easy prey target for wild lions on the hunt for food; if they gain entrance to traditional bomas they can predate on large numbers. Collaring for Coexistence is one of the pillars of the Coexistence coop programme, that Lion Landscapes run together with The Peregrine Fund to help halt the decline of lion populations. We deploy and manage specialized lion GPS collars that send us hourly locations for the lions; in each monitored pride one adult lioness is collared, and one adult male in each male coalition. Access to this lion movement data is given to livestock owners via a user-friendly app developed by Save The Elephants Kenya that maps the lion locations on google earth. Even if livestock owners don’t have the same technology as all of us, almost all of them have access to smartphones and a cell network. The information on lion locations can provide livestock owners with a warning if an individual is nearby, allowing them enough time to scare the individual away and keep their livestock safe. Scaring the lions away with much noise and disturbance is necessary to teach the lions that this area is best avoided in future. Reducing livestock depredation in this way minimises potential retaliatory poisoning events, supporting lion populations to reproduce and stay alive to care for their cubs. Lioness Labai, collared in 2018 with her 6-month-old cub. 2 years ago, Labai was sadly lost in a snare for bushmeat. Losing a lion in a snare is thankfully a rare event in Laikipia due to collective efforts of landowners, managers and conservation organisations but Labai's death highlights the importance of continued anti-poaching efforts in the area. Collared lioness Dawn’s cubs at Sosian Lodge. Kids for Cubs - Shop for your own little cubs and support real-life conservation Here at Lion Landscapes, we are excited to announce the launch of our new shop shipping to the UK and Europe, where supporters can buy a range of organic and sustainable products for their own little cubs! The perfect birthday present or baby shower gift for any nature and animal lover in the making. All proceeds from every sale go straight to our conservation programmes in the field, supporting real-life conservation efforts to help to save vulnerable African lions whilst protecting community livelihoods in Africa. And you don’t need to be jealous of your little ones for too long... adult products are also on the way, along with a US shop! Organic Baby Contrasting Bodysuit made from 100% organic cotton. Organic Baby and Kids T-shirts Lion Landscapes accessories, perfect for any little adventurer! We remain extremely grateful to The Nature Conservancy, Tusk Trust, Will’s Africa Fund, the Kenya Wildlife Service, and our many crowd donors for supporting the work we do, enabling us to better monitor and protect the lion populations of Laikipia.