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The African lion is the only big cat listed on CITES Appendix II, and the only one for which international commercial trade is legal under CITES. The trade in lion body parts, and especially the contentious trade in bones from South Africa to Asia, has raised concerns spanning continents and cultures. Debates were amplified at the 2016 CITES Conference of the Parties (CoP17) when a proposal to up-list lions to Appendix I was not supported and a compromise to keep them on Appendix II, with a bone trade quota for South Africa, was reached instead. CoP17 underscored a need for further information on the lion bone trade and the consequences for lions across the continent. Legal international trade in bones to Asia, allegedly to supply the substitute ‘tiger bone’ market, began in South Africa in February 2008 when the first CITES permits were issued. It was initially unclear the degree to which bones were sourced from captive-origin lions, and whether trade was a threat to wild lion populations. Our original assessment of the legal CITES-permitted lion bone trade from South Africa to East-Southeast Asia was for the period 2008–2011 (published 2015). In this paper, we consolidate new information that has become available for 2012–2016, including CITES reports from other African countries, and data on actual exports for three years to 2016 supplied by a freight forwarding company. Thus, we update the figures on the legal trade in lion bones from Africa to East-Southeast Asia in the period 2008–2016. We also contextualise the basis for global concerns by reviewing the history of the trade and its relation to tigers, poaching and wildlife trafficking. CITES permits issued to export bones escalated from ±314y-1 skeletons from 2008–2011, to ±1312y-1 skeletons from 2013–2015. South Africa was the only legal exporter of bones to Asia until 2013 when Namibia issued permits to export skeletons to Vietnam. While CITES permits to export ±5363 skeletons from Africa to Asia from 2008–2015 were issued (99.1% from South Africa; 0.7% from Namibia) (51% for Laos), actual exports were less than stated on the permits. However, information on actual exports from 2014–2016 indicated that >3400 skeletons were exported in that period. In total, >6000 skeletons weighing no less than 70 tonnes have been shipped to East-Southeast Asia since 2008. Since few wild lions are hunted and poached within South African protected areas, skeletons for the legal trade appear to be derived from captive bred lions. However, confirmation of a 116kg shipment from Uganda to Laos, and reports of lion poaching in neighbouring countries, indicate that urgent proactive monitoring and evaluation of the legal and illegal trade is necessary in African lion range states where vulnerable wild lion populations are likely to be adversely affected.

In South Africa, animals and plants are commonly used as traditional medicine for both the healing of ailments and for symbolic purposes such as improving relationships and attaining good fortune. The aim of this study was twofold: to quantify the species richness and diversity of traded animal species and to assess the trade in species of conservation concern. We surveyed the Faraday traditional medicine market in Johannesburg and conducted 45 interviews of 32 traders during 23 visits. We identified 147 vertebrate species representing about 9% of the total number of vertebrate species in South Africa and about 63% of the total number of documented species (excluding domestic animals) traded in all South African traditional medicine markets. The vertebrates included 60 mammal species, 33 reptile species, 53 bird species and one amphibian species. Overall, species diversity in the Faraday market was moderately high and highest for mammals and birds, respectively. Evenness values indicated that relatively few species were dominant. Mammal body parts and bones were the most commonly sold items (n = 2453, excluding porcupine quills and pangolin scales), followed by reptiles (n = 394, excluding osteoderms), birds (n = 193, excluding feathers and ostrich eggs) and amphibians (n = 6). Most (87.5%) species traded were of least concern using IUCN criteria, although 17 species were of conservation concern. However, a higher than expected proportion of traders (62.5%) were selling listed species, which is a matter for concern and should be monitored in the future.

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Scattered populations of the same tree species in montane forests through Africa have led to speculations on the origins of distributions. Here, we inferred the colonization history of the Afromontane tree Prunus africana using seven chloroplast DNA loci to study 582 individuals from 32 populations sampled in a range-wide survey from across Africa, revealing 22 haplotypes. The predominant haplotype, HT1a, occurred in 13 populations of eastern and southern Africa, while a second common haplotype, HT1m, occurred in populations of western Uganda and western Africa. The high differentiation observed between populations in East Africa was unexpected, with stands in western Uganda belonging with the western African lineage. High genetic differentiation among populations revealed using ordered alleles (N ST = 0.840) compared with unordered alleles (G ST = 0.735), indicated a clear phylogeographic pattern. Bayesian coalescence modelling suggested that 'east' and 'west' African types likely split early during southward migration of the species, while further more recent splitting events occurred among populations in the East of the continent. The high genetic similarity found between western Uganda and west African populations indicates that a former Afromontane migration corridor may have existed through Equatorial Africa.

The African lion is in decline across its range, and consumptive utilisation and trade of their body parts and skins has been postulated as a cause for concern. We undertook a pan-African questionnaire and literature survey to document informed opinion and evidence for the occurrence of domestic and international trade and consumption in African lion body parts across current and former range states. Sixty-five people from 18 countries participated in the online questionnaire survey (run from July 2014 to May 2015), with information provided for 28 countries (including 20 out of 24 countries believed to have extant populations). Respondents were experts within their professional spheres, and 77% had ≥6 years relevant experience within lion conservation or allied wildlife matters. Their opinions revealed wide sub-regional differences in consumptive use, drivers of trade, and access to lions that impact wild lion populations in different ways. Traditional medicine practices (African and Asian) were perceived to be the main uses to which lion body parts and bones are put domestically and traded internationally, and there is reason for concern about persistent imports from former lion range states (mainly in West Africa) for parts for this purpose. The domestic, rather than international, trade in lion body parts was perceived to be a bigger threat to wild lion populations. Parts such as skin, claws, teeth and bones are thought to be in most demand across the continent. The impact of international trade on wild populations was acknowledged to be largely unknown, but occasionally was judged to be ‘high’, and therefore vigilance is needed to monitor emerging detrimental impacts. Seventeen countries were nominated as priorities for immediate monitoring, including: South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Cameroon. Reasons for their selection include: prevalence of trophy hunting, ‘hot spots’ for poaching, active domestic trade in lion body parts, trade in curios for the tourist market, and histories of legal-illegal wildlife trade. This survey, and increased incident reports since mid-2015 of lion poisoning and poaching in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa, and sporadic poaching events in Uganda and Tanzania, are signalling an escalating trend in the trade of lion products that is an increasing threat to some national populations. The evidence is sufficient to make more detailed investigation of this trade a conservation priority.

The incorporation of suitable quantitative methods into ethnobotanical studies enhances the value of the research and the interpretation of the results. Prediction of sample species richness and the use of species accumulation functions have been addressed little in applied ethnobotany. In this paper, incidence-based species richness estimators, species accumulation curves and similarity measures are used to compare and predict species richness, evaluate sampling effort and compare the similarity of species inventories for ethnobotanical data sets derived from the trade in traditional medicine in Johannesburg and Mpumalanga, South Africa. EstimateS was used to compute estimators of species richness (e.g. Jackknife), rarefaction curves, species accumulation curves and complimentarity. Results showed that while the Michaelis-Menten Means estimator appeared to be the best estimator because the curve approached a horizontal asymptote, it was not able to accurately predict species richness for one of the data sets when two of its subsamples were individually tested. Instead, the first-order Jackknife estimator best approximated the known richness.