Based on a joint report launched by the Authorities of India in collaboration with different non-profit organisations on 30 January 2024, there are simply 718 snow leopards in India, of which solely a 3rd are below authorized safety. The Standing Report of Snow Leopards in India famous that hardly 34% of the 1,20,000 sq. kilometres of snow leopard habitat in India is legally protected. Lower than 70% of this predator’s habitat stays unprotected. (Above pictures of Dr Tsewang Namgail, a snow leopard & Charudutt Mishra)
Given these figures, it’s crucial for native communities to be engaged within the conservation of this threatened species. Listed here are eight conservationists who’ve executed unbelievable work in not solely understanding snow leopards but in addition partaking native communities to guard them.
Charudutt Mishra
Charudutt Mishra (Charu), the manager director of Snow Leopard Belief, is taken into account by many because the world’s foremost knowledgeable on snow leopard conservation.
He’s a pioneer of the community-based conservation mannequin and has spent almost three many years spearheading groundbreaking initiatives. In 1997, he embarked upon a PhD within the distant village of Kibber, in Spiti Valley, Himachal Pradesh. Upon reaching there, he heard a disturbing story {that a} snow leopard had lately been mercilessly killed.
As an alternative of letting anger or mistrust get in the way in which, Charu immersed himself in the neighborhood and took the time to grasp the hardships below which they lived. He learnt that native communities weren’t unwilling however unable to “truly take part in conservation”.
Akin to the mannequin later adopted by the late Rinchen Wangchuk and Dr Tsewang Namgail of Snow Leopard Conservancy-India Belief in Ladakh, Charu created India’s first community-managed livestock insurance coverage programme in 2002 — adopted by different community-based conservation and livelihood initiatives.
In 2013, he established the International Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Safety Programme, “an intergovernmental alliance of all 12 snow leopard vary international locations working in direction of their safety”. Immediately, he continues to impart invaluable data to different conservationists on how you can ethically and successfully interact with native communities to guard snow leopards.
(Supply: Whitley Fund for Nature)
Rinchen Wangchuk, Dr Tsewang Namgail, and Jigmet Dadul
The late Rinchen Wangchuk — a wildlife researcher from Ladakh and founding father of the Snow Leopard Conservancy-India Belief (SLC-IT) — and his successor (present director of SLC-IT) Dr Tsewang Namgail, understood very early on the necessity to reconcile snow leopard conservation with the wants of the native communities who lose their livestock, significantly sheep and goats, to those elusive wild cats.
For instance, rising up as a baby herder within the picturesque Skurbuchan village in Leh district, Dr Namgail understood what it meant for native communities to lose their goats and sheep to snow leopards. That is one thing even the late Rinchen Wangchuk and Jigmet Dadul — one among India’s main Snow Leopard naturalists and trackers — additionally understood as they spent complete winters dwelling in tents and monitoring snow leopards within the Nineties.
They took a wide range of steps to deal with the wants of native communities, thus addressing a main supply of snow leopard deaths — human-animal conflicts. These steps included aiding native farmers and nomads to construct buildings that defend their livestock; establishing a community-controlled livestock insurance coverage programme; and pioneering one of many earliest fashions of eco-tourism with conservation-linked homestays situated in crucial snow leopard habitats.
Changing these once-angry locals into energetic conservationists is not any imply feat. Immediately, nonetheless, Jigmet and his son Nawang Gaylston, run a wildlife expedition firm referred to as ‘The Snow Leopard Quest’, bringing researchers, conservationists, and vacationers to witness this majestic wild cat.
Khenrab Phuntsog
Khenrab Phuntsog — an award-winning snow leopard conservationist with over twenty years of expertise as a Wildlife Guard in Hemis Nationwide Park, Ladakh — grew up in a small village referred to as Chilling. He was barely 12 years outdated when he noticed a snow leopard within the wild barely 100 metres away looking a blue sheep.
As many conservationists have said prior to now, there’s something virtually legendary and religious in regards to the presence of snow leopards. It’s one thing Khenrab additionally felt when he was 12 and there’s no doubt that this vivid reminiscence he had of a snow leopard would encourage Khenrab to dedicate the remainder of his life to guard them.
Since becoming a member of the Wildlife Safety Division in 2000, he has rescued about 50 snow leopards trapped in human habitations and launched them again into the wild. An knowledgeable in putting in digital camera traps and monitoring, he additionally consults personal operators on how you can plan snow leopard expeditions, practice spotters and trackers, and go away behind a minimal ecological footprint.
Karma Sonam
Karma Sonam — a discipline supervisor with the Nature Conservation Basis (NCF) in Ladakh — has devoted his life to decreasing human-wildlife battle in 17 communities throughout Japanese Ladakh and creating consciousness in regards to the significance of environmental safety.
Leveraging a system of community-based conservation, he has facilitated the implementation of crucial initiatives like self-sustaining insurance coverage schemes for pastoralists who lose their livestock to predators like snow leopards, creation of grazing-free reserves for herbivores just like the Tibetan gazelle (which can be prey for snow leopards), and changing Shandongs (conventional wolf traps) into holy Buddhist websites that enable trapped animals to flee again into the wild.
What has labored for Karma is his pure capability to construct and preserve shut relationships with totally different communities. Leveraging these shut relationships, he convinces and incentivises native communities to work for wildlife conservation. For many years, pastoralists in Ladakh have had a tough relationship with predators, like snow leopards and wolves, who prey on their livestock. By his intensive grassroots efforts, he has executed so much to restore that relationship.
Koustubh Sharma
Koustubh Sharma — the Conservation Science Director at Snow Leopard Belief — has labored in a number of the remotest and roughest terrains on this planet to raised perceive snow leopard ecology.
Launched to them by Dr Raghu Chundawat, a pioneer of snow leopard research in India, Koustubh has devoted an excessive amount of time to the International Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Safety Programme. The programme, in response to Koustubh, “brings collectively governments from 12 snow leopard vary international locations, policymakers, establishments, organisations and conservationists towards securing the way forward for snow leopards and their mountains”.
“What I want extra individuals knew about conservation initiatives is that not a single penny of the cash meant for snow leopard conservation goes into the pocket of the snow leopards. It’s at all times invested in assist of individuals, whether or not it’s the native or indigenous communities operating conservation programmes, the frontline rangers patrolling and monitoring wildlife, or the conservation groups working below expedition situations,” says Koustubh.
He goes on so as to add, “…our initiatives are about far more than simply defending a single species. We work intently with native and indigenous communities to create sustainable livelihoods that profit each individuals and wildlife. After we spend money on conservation, we’re investing in individuals.”
(Supply: Sanctuary Nature Basis and Snow Leopard Belief)
Shiv Kumar
It was a night in 2019 when Shiv Kumar — a Deputy Vary Officer at Lahaul forest in Himachal Pradesh — first noticed a snow leopard. Chatting with The Higher India in 2022, he referred to as it an “unforgettable second”. Thereafter, Shiv started conservation consciousness courses about snow leopards amongst college kids for the animal’s safety. He additionally reached out to villagers to tell them about its significance, threatened existence and its want for defense.
Like in Ladakh, the livestock belonging to the Gaddi group — a group of migratory shepherds — and locals within the Lahaul space stay below risk from snow leopards.
Chatting with the Chennai Younger Naturalists’ Community, Shiv stated, “Usually, individuals from this [Gaddi] group didn’t apply for compensation even once they misplaced livestock as a result of the alpine meadows they used to graze their livestock in can be 30 to 35 kilometres from the closest city. So we acquired along with the Nature Conservation Basis (NCF) and made a handbook with all of the procedures to observe if one have been to lose any livestock.”
(Edited by Pranita Bhat; Photographs courtesy Karamjeet Singh/X, Whitley Fund for Nature)
