The lion is protected under Appendix II of CITES. Hunting is prohibited in Angola, Botswana, Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Rwanda. Hunting is regulated or restricted to problem animals in Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zaïre, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Trophy hunting is permitted in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, CAR, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe and there is no legal protection of the lion in Burundi, Guinea Bissau, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. No information is available for Chad, Djibouti and Guinea.

To minimize human-lion conflict, appropriate livestock management measures must be taken, measures for problem animal control and mechanisms for compensating livestock losses.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the lion conservation community works in four broad regions: West, Central, East and South. Several workshops for the conservation of lions have been conducted throughout Africa in recent years. Regional Conservation strategies have been developed for West and Central as well as for Eastern and Southern Africa. The African lion conservation strategy in West and Central Africa has three main objectives:

• to reduce lion-human conflict
• to conserve habitat and wild prey base
• to increase lion habitat and wild prey base

The lion conservation strategy of Eastern and Southern Africa additionally includes policy and land use aspects as well as socio-economic issues, trade and conservation politics. Both strategies have set priorities for lion conservation including the improvement of lion management and the creation of incentive through benefits for communities living with lions. These regional strategies are thought to help guide Action plans and conservation projects for lions and have the potential for broad and significant improvement of the lion status.