Viewpoints

Our Earth is a delicate balancing act, and current trends are pulling us in an increasingly unsustainable direction. It’s up to each of us to counter that pull by taking meaningful actions that support effective and lasting conservation outcomes.

Since The Walt Disney Company released the original version of “The Lion King” in 1994, lion populations in the wild have dropped by a staggering 50 percent. Today, a groundbreaking remake of the popular film hits theaters along with a critical mission: to ignite the spirit of conservation around the world and bring lions back from the brink.

In November, the National Geographic Society and African People & Wildlife (APW) brought together 16 participants from six countries in Arusha, Tanzania for a workshop on The Future of Community Engagement in Conservation. The gathering was the first of its kind and a critical step toward the creation of a pan-African network of community engagement practitioners.

I remember a time when the roars of lions reverberated throughout Tanzania’s Tarangire ecosystem. When my husband, Charles Trout, and I first began work here in 2000 as part of my Ph.D. research program, we heard the lions roar almost every night—often from several different directions.

In a landscape threatened by climate change and overburdened natural resources, a rural woman leads efforts to protect habitat for people and wildlife.