India falling behind in protection of snow leopards and their habitat | Janaki Lenin

The first international steering committee meeting to coordinate conservation efforts for the snow leopard is being held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on 19 and 20 March 2015. Ministers, bureaucrats, and conservation organisations from 12 range countries are expected to attend. Sadly, India will not be represented by its minister or any of its senior bureaucrats. As a first step this global snow leopard initiative seeks to identify 20 landscapes and secure them by the year 2020. Each of these areas should have adequate wild prey, hold at least 100 breeding snow leopards, and connect to other snow leopard populations. Snow leopards range far outside protected areas, across a rugged terrain shared with humans and their livestock. They often prey on domestic herbivores that outnumber wild prey in these pasture lands, where they have little protection and are vulnerable to retaliation by disgruntled livestock owners. While wildlife uses pasture lands, people utilise resources from protected areas. When most snow leopard habitat is above the treeline, demarcating and protecting a few small areas has little value. Instead, entire landscapes need to be conserved with the active participation of people. India, host to between 400 and 700 snow leopards, has identified three such landscapes, totaling almost 47,000 sq km (about 18,000 sq miles): Hemis-Spiti in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, Gangotri-Nanda Devi in Uttarakhand, and Kanchendzonga-Tawang in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Over five years, conservation organisations, scientists, snow leopard states, and the government of India drafted a visionary national participatory management programme called Project Snow Leopard. It was launched in January 2009. But sadly, the initial enthusiasm to protect the species seems to have worn off. Under Project Snow Leopard, states have to identify the best snow leopard areas and draft management plans. Himachal Pradesh is the only state to have completed this process with help from Nature Conservation Foundation. Instead of designating a specific landscape, Jammu and Kashmir, with assistance from Wildlife Institute of India is attempting to conserve all of Ladakh, a daunting but doable task. Project managers in many areas haven’t sought the communities’ support in snow leopard conservation, helped them with alternate livelihoods, or developed ways to reduce conflict with the wild cats. Used to a protected area-centric approach to conservation, they probably think it’s anathema to invest money and effort in communities. But Project Snow Leopard recognises there is no other way to secure snow leopard habitat. Despite the sluggish progress in the past six years, neither the state or central governments appear to be too concerned. Perhaps snow leopards are not high priority like tigers and elephants. But conservation in these icy expanses seems to be easier to achieve compared to the knotty conservation problems facing peninsular India. For one thing, there’s none of the confrontation between NGOs and government agencies that plagues tiger conservation. Fewer people live in high altitudes, and they have a strong sense of community. If the government of India would take just a little effort, it could achieve much. One hopes the Bishkek meeting inspires the government to act energetically on Project Snow Leopard this year, the International Year of the Snow Leopard.