We are happy to share our Annual Report for 2022 with you and would like to direct you to the opening address from our Steering Committee Chair – Dr. Sandro Lovari, (see page 3). 20year of snow leopard practitioners & scientists coming together around challenges of mountain ecosystem conservation. This remains a very unique & thriving community; that we are proud to be a part of!
Link to our report: https://
Mountains cover more than 90% of Tajikistan. The country’s mountain regions are home to the snow leopard, Marco Polo sheep, Tajik markhor, urial sheep and Asiatic ibex. Tajikistan is developing a climate-smart National Action Plan for the conservation of the snow leopard (Panthera uncia) and its ecosystems in Tajikistan for 2023-2025 supported by UNEPs Vanishing Treasures programme in Tajikistan. Join Ismoil Kholmatov from the Association of Nature Conservation Organizations of Tajikistan (ANCOT) who will share updates of this ongoing effort.
Nepal has a long history in snow leopard conservation. Rinzin Phunjok Lama from the Third Pole Conservancy will share updates of the teams ongoing snow leopard population survey in Humla, west Nepal. He will share how community conservation provides the foundation for their monitoring efforts. Rinzin and his colleagues are actively working in partnership with local stakeholders to tackle threats to snow leopards including direct killings, forest fires, illegal logging through a number of livelihood programs (including gathering honey, making traditional clothes, and running ecotourism businesses). Their work includes large scale monitoring of snow leopards and other wildlife. Join us as Rinzin shares the opportunities and challenges of achieving this multi-pronged approach.
Qilianshan National Park, extends along the magnificent Qilian Mountains in north-eastern corner of the Tibetan Plateau. The mountains of 52,000 sq.km provide home and future refuges for snow leopard and many other wildlife. When the national park was established in 2016, an ambitious plan was announced to assess snow leopard populations across the entire mountain range. Since 2014, Dr. Yanlin Liu has been working with different teams on the snow leopard assessment in Qilian Mountains. Yanlin is currently the Science Director of the Chinese Felid Conservation Alliance and previously served as director of the snow leopard project for the ShanShui Conservation Center and a Post-Doc in the Chinese Academy of Forest. During this session he will share some of the opportunities and challenges his team is facing. He would love to hear form other SLN members and discuss large scale monitoring strategies.
In 2021, Panthera kick-started a project with a focus in building conservation capacity and partnerships with communities in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Since June 2021, the project was co-led by two female conservationists, Sabin Snow Leopard grantee Fatima Mannapbekova and CEPF project lead Altynai Adabaeva. Together with the Ilbirs Foundation, they’ve made introductory visits to communities in the Osh Oblast of Kyrgyzstan to establish relationships with local stakeholders and communities. Later, they led a team of surveyors to conduct the preliminary survey work via household interviews. Over 23 days, 639 interviews were conducted in 37 villages. During this SLN session, Altynai and Fatima will share the results of their work, challenges faced, and lessons learned while working in a rarely studied snow leopard habitat.
Добро пожаловать на Зимнюю встречу обмена опытом Сети Cнежного барса (Snow Leopard Network, SLN). Цель зимней программы обмена опытом SLN – собрать вместе исследователей и специалистов-практиков по сохранению снежного барса со всего мира и поделиться последними достижениями в области программ и исследований по сохранению снежного барса. Наши эксперты поделятся последними новостями из разных регионов Высокой Азии: мы будем путешествовать и встречаться с командами, работающими в Таджикистане, Непале, Китае, России и Кыргызстане. За каждым обзором и вдохновляющим выступлением последует период обсуждения, в ходе которого мы глубже изучим идеи, опираясь на опыт и знания группы. Все сессии будут проводиться с синхронным переводом на английском и русском языке.
Наша Ресурсная команда (Resource Team) – это индивидуальные и организационные члены Сети Снежного Барса, которые используют свои обширные знания и опыт. Мы очень признательны нашей команде консультантов за то, что нашли время, чтобы присоединиться к нам в это стремление, и мы с нетерпением ждем, когда члены сети воспользуются этой уникальной возможностью. Пожалуйста, передайте информацию всем заинтересованным лицам, поскольку эти занятия БЕСПЛАТНЫ и открыты для всех. Мы благодарим Глобальную программу по сохранению снежного барса и его экосистем (GSLEP) за поддержку, благодаря которой это мероприятие стало возможным. Зарегистрироваться до 20 ноября можно ЗДЕСЬ.
Hosted by Dr. Munib Khanyari
Asia’s mountain ungulates play an important role in maintaining ecosystems by influencing vegetation structure and nutrient cycling. There is a need for more information about the population status of these ungulates, which carries special significance in the protection of the snow leopard across its range. This session will explore a range of mountain ungulate monitoring and conservation approaches. Dr. Munib Khanyari will facilitate the session. He works with the Nature Conservation Foundation as a Program Manager. He works primarily across the Trans-Himalayan region of India, aiming to build positive human-nature relationships.
It all started back in 2002 – twenty years ago. The Snow Leopard Survival Summit brought together over 60 experts from 17 countries to develop what was to become the Snow Leopard Survival Strategy. From that meeting the Snow Leopard Network was founded with a Steering Committee of eight elected members. Many of the 2002 Summit participants, are still working in snow leopard conservation today. Now, with over 500 members and 28 organisations, the Snow Leopard Network provides a platform for an increasing number of practitioners across Asia and the world around snow leopard conservation.
Join us on September 13th, 2022, where we will take the opportunity to look back and highlight some key moments and achievements of the Network. We are bringing together 5 distinguished Steering Committee members from different periods of time to share experiences and reflections through photographic images and their accounts. We will also use this opportunity to look to the future of the Network.
Dr. Eirini Skrimizea
Participatory climate risk assessment for integrating climate change considerations into development and conservation efforts. Climate risk assessments allow to understand climate risk and vulnerabilities, and can support in identifying and selecting adaptation strategies aligned with development goals and conservation efforts. The meaningful inclusion of the communities in the process is necessary in order to obtain valuable information, raise awareness and ensure adaptation actions that are relevant to the local contexts. In this module these issues and more will be discussed. Participants will be introduced to basic climate change related concepts, and exposed – through an interactive exercise – to a method for participatory climate risk assessment based on the ‘Climate impact Chains’ analytical approach. The module will draw on the example of participatory climate risk assessments in Kyrgyzstan showing how these integrated considerations on human-wildlife conflict with focus on snow leopards. Dr. Eirini Skrimizea will facilitate the session. Eirini Skrimizea is a postdoctoral researcher with a background in planning and sustainability research. She has expertise on governance of socio-ecological development and the social aspects of climate change in the Global North and South.
Dr. Sahil Nijhawan
Significant focus has been placed on community-based conservation in recent decades. However, much purported community-based conservation research and practice continues to be top-down, where local people are seen as beneficiaries and stakeholders, but not right-holders. In this workshop, using case studies, we will explore efforts to make conservation research and practice more equitable, ethical and horizontal. We will discuss the philosophy, practice and challenges of conducting rights-based and truly collaborative conservation. Dr. Sahil Nijhawan is an interdisciplinary conservation anthropologist who has worked on human-wildlife relations across Latin America, Southern Africa and India. For the past decade, he has worked alongside the indigenous Idu Mishmi people of Arunachal Pradesh (India) – a journey that began with his doctoral research on socio-cultural, ecological and political relations between the Idu Mishmi and tigers. He is now part of local teams in Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland working on a range of locally-led initiatives towards rights-based bio-cultural conservation and research.
The recording of this session is available on request.