A private company is seeking government approval for a $120mn conservation and ecotourism project in central Senegal that its backers say could increase the country’s tourism receipts by 21%, in what would be the largest private wildlife conservation initiative ever attempted in West Africa.
Lion Rouge, the company behind the Grand Maka Yop Big Five project, presented the proposal at a press conference in Dakar on May 5, attended by senior members of its management team, Seneweb reported on May 6. The plan targets 35,000 hectares of forest land in the Kaffrine region and centres on the reintroduction of more than 50 species, with particular focus on the Big Five — lions, buffalo, leopards, elephants and rhinoceroses — none of which currently roam freely in Senegal in significant numbers.
The project is structured in two phases. The first would mobilise 17,000 hectares, with the remaining land incorporated as the conservation area matures. Alongside the wildlife component, Lion Rouge has proposed a 13,000-hectare agroforestry buffer zone to be restored with indigenous species including mango trees, moringa and shea trees, with value chains developed to connect local producers to wider markets.
Adrian Mill, Chief Executive Officer of Lion Rouge, outlined three factors he said made Senegal the right country for the investment: its flight connectivity, with European capitals reachable in four to six hours; its biodiversity deficit, with more than 50 West African species currently classified as endangered; and its carbon financing model, under which all carbon revenues would be directed back to local communities rather than to investors.
The investment case is built on Senegal’s existing but underdeveloped wildlife tourism infrastructure. The country already operates the Bandia Reserve near Dakar and the Niokolo-Koba National Park in the southeast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Neither, however, operates at the scale or with the species profile that would attract the high-spend safari market currently dominated by South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania. Kaffrine, located in the geographic centre of the country and relatively accessible from Dakar, is seen by Lion Rouge as a blank canvas with the land availability that coastal and northern Senegal cannot offer.
The financial model draws on multiple revenue streams. Tourism — lodge stays, guided safaris, fly-in experiences — forms the commercial core. Carbon credits generated by the reforestation programme provide a secondary income line, and the agroforestry component is designed to produce tradeable commodities. The Australian government has already provided seed funding for a 10-hectare pilot reforestation programme, carried out in collaboration with local communities including a group of women foresters who took the lead role in planting and environmental awareness activities.
The project’s proponents also make a broader economic argument. Senegal welcomed nearly 2.26 million visitors in 2024, according to its Ministry of Tourism, and the current government’s Vision Senegal 2050 development plan has set an explicit target of creating 500,000 jobs linked to the tourism sector and raising its contribution to national GDP to 10%. A project of the Grand Maka Yop’s scale — combining conservation, hospitality infrastructure, carbon markets and agroforestry — maps directly onto those ambitions, particularly as the government has pushed for decentralised development away from Dakar. Equal TimesEqual Times
Ecotourism in Senegal currently faces structural challenges including isolation, poor road conditions, ageing transport infrastructure, and high fares charged by transport operators — conditions that a project of this size would need to directly address to be commercially viable. For Kaffrine, a region with no established tourism infrastructure, the investment would effectively need to build from scratch: access roads, airstrips or improved road links from Dakar, lodge accommodation, ranger training, veterinary capacity for species reintroduction, and water infrastructure across an area larger than many European cities. Equal Times
That infrastructure gap is both the project’s greatest challenge and its most significant opportunity. If Lion Rouge can secure state approval and mobilise the full $120mn, the Kaffrine site would represent a genuinely new asset class for West African travel — a private safari destination with a carbon-positive operating model and community revenue-sharing built into its structure from the outset, rather than added as an afterthought.
The political path to approval is currently navigating a complication. Lion Rouge had been in active discussions with the previous Senegalese Minister of the Environment, but a recent cabinet reshuffle installed Abdourahmane Diouf in the post, disrupting those talks. In November 2025, a letter of intent was signed between the company and local communities, giving the proposal formal community backing. The decision now rests with the government.
Mill and his team have indicated they remain confident the project will proceed, describing the cabinet transition as a delay rather than a reversal. For Senegal’s tourism sector — and for the international travel operators watching West Africa’s safari potential with growing interest — the outcome of that approval process will be closely tracked.