In celebration of Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King, an all-new film in the classic Lion King franchise, Disney has relaunched Protect the Pride, a conservation effort made by the studio in support of the Wildlife Conservation Network’s Lion Recovery Fund and it’s partner organizations in Africa working tirelessly to double the population of wild lions by 2050.
When Disney originally leased the animated classic The Lion King in 1994, Africa’s lion population was nearly double what is is now. Climate change, habitat loss, human-wildlife conflict, and the growing wildlife trade has taken a toll on the natural lion population in Africa, and in 2019 – ahead of the remake of The Lion King featuring photorealistic CGI – the Protect The Pride campaign launched for the first time, allowing the Wildlife Conservation Network to expand its operation, ultimately funding over three hundred conservation projects across twenty-five countries in Africa as part of its Lion Recovery Fund. In addition to building jobs that have helped thousands of people across Africa, the Wildlife Conservation Network and the Lion Recovery Fund has helped build the lion population by restoring landscapes, supporting sustainable economic development, and doing groundwork like removing 83,000 harmful snare traps from wild habitats – things that benefit not only the lion population in Africa, but all wildlife.
“The fight to recover Africa’s lions must begin with a holistic approach that protects not only the species, but also the landscapes they depend on and the people who share their environments,” said Peter Lindsey, Director of WCN’s Lion Recovery Fund.
The relaunching of this campaign is but the newest chapter in Disney’s long and illustrious history of dedication to meaningful and positive change in the partnership between man and mother Earth. Since 1995, the Disney Conservation Fund has given more than 125 million to conservation efforts across the world, including across all five oceans, and supported over twenty five million projects across Africa alone. These community-based efforts that Disney has engaged in with the help of organizations like the Wildlife Conservation Network have helped protect more than one thousand species of animals while broadening our understandings of how humanity fits into the ecosystem of our spaceship Earth.
You can learn more about Disney’s conservation efforts by visiting Disney.com/MufasaProtectThePride or by clicking [here] to be automatically directed to their conservation page, or click [here] to read more about the new lion pride to join Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and how they represent conservation milestones. Mufasa: The Lion King will be coming to theaters nationwide on December 20th, 2024, but in the meantime, you can check out the Protect the Pride video featuring the Cast of Mufasa,in this all-new featurette including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Aaron Pierre (Mufasa), Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Taka) and Anika Noni Rose (Afia), on the official Disney YouTube channel, linked below:
