In May, the prestigious Whitley Award was awarded to SLN member Dr. Muhammad Ali Nawaz for his work on snow leopard conservation in northern Pakistan.
Kashif Syed, Communications Coordinator of the Snow Leopard Foundation, distributed the following press release:
London- UK, Islamabad-Pakistan:
HRH The Princess Royal presented a Whitley Award, a prestigious
international nature conservation prize to Dr Muhammad Ali Nawaz, at a
ceremony in the Royal Geographical Society, London, attended by over 550
guests including Sir David Attenborough. Ali, an educationist, researcher
and conservationist from Pakistan, has been honoured for his efforts to
protect the endangered snow leopard in the mountains of northern Pakistan.
This year’s Whitley Awards — often referred to as the “Green Oscars” — has
been given to seven conservationists chosen from a pool of over 120
applicants from 53 countries for their “innovative conservation projects”.
Presented annually since 1994, the Whitley Awards are given to individuals
in recognition of “their achievements in nature conservation.”
Based at the Quaid-i-Azam University, Ali has established snow leopard
program in Pakistan, which is a unique research and conservation initiative
in the country. The snow leopard program is a partnership initiative between
the Snow Leopard Foundation, Federal Ministry of Climate Change, provincial
Wildlife Departments, and local communities. Snow leopards are considered
critically endangered in Pakistan where Ali is working in the
Himalaya-Karakoram-Pamir-Hindukush mountain complex to conserve the species.
Threatened by poaching, habitat degradation and subsequent decline of
natural prey, snow leopards are sometimes killed by herders in retaliation
to livestock predation. This loss to herders’ livelihoods can be the
equivalent of a month’s salary, but through scientific research and
introduction of innovative measures that buffer against livestock losses and
increase tolerance, Ali is reducing human-wildlife conflict. Besides this,
the snow leopard program has generated unprecedented scientific information
on the unique ecosystem of this mountain complex, through state of the art
research tools. The program is nurturing young ecologists to build
country’s capacity in field research and prepare next-generation
conservationists.
At an awards ceremony each winner received £35,000 (~$50,700) in project
funding. The award money will help the conservationists scale up their work
to conserve some of the planet’s most endangered species and iconic places.
With his Whitley Award Ali will bring together people, NGOs and government
in a unified effort to develop a multi-stakeholder strategy for 25,000 km2
of this mountainous habitat. This will be Pakistan’s first landscape-level
strategy for snow leopard conservation and will be used as a model to guide
future conservation planning in the country. The project will train 50
wildlife managers, whilst engaging with 6,000 herders to enable the
co-existence of communities and carnivores. Ali’s work represents one of the
first steps towards the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection
Programme’s (GSLEP) goal to secure 23 important snow leopard habitats by
2020.
News , picture, & Videos can be find at:
SLF Pakistan Twitter: https://twitter.com/SLFPakistan
SLF Pakistan Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/slfpak
SLF Pakistan YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfwgy6zTMFxZ2lqHCI9xQtg
Whitley Fund Sources:
All Photographs of Whitley Awards:
https://picasaweb.google.com/105548002819098368093
All Video / Short Documentary on Whitley YouTube page:
https://www.youtube.com/user/DwallisWFN/videos