Selected grantee report

A collaborative “National Census of Leopard” project is being implemented by NAPHA, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, and the Large Carnivore Association of Namibia (LCMAN), with additional financial support via the Namibian Chamber of Environment. The recent IUCN Red Data List (2016) recategorised the conservation status of leopard globally, from Near Threatened to Vulnerable. This places greater significance on the need to better understand the status, population size and trends of the Namibian leopard population.

While the leopard has a broad geographical range in Namibia, from the Namib desert to the Zambezi woodlands, it is rarely seen. As a result, there is currently a limited amount of information available on which to base its conservation and management. This project takes a multi-disciplinary approach, inside and outside national parks, by combining ecological and social science approaches to understand the pressures on, and status of, the leopard population across Namibia.