Johannesburg - Africa needs an annual budget of at least $1.25bn to save the lion, conservationists said, a year after the killing of a Zimbabwean cat named Cecil provoked global outrage.

The money is required to protect lions’ natural habitat from human encroachment, the most effective way of maintaining populations, Panthera, WildAid and the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, known as WildCru, said in a report published on Thursday.

Cecil, a 13-year-old lion whose black mane made him popular with tourists, was being monitored by WildCru when he was illegally killed by US hunter Walter Palmer in July 2015.