Abstract: The woman in the picture is wrapped in a luxurious fur coat and hat. The distinctly spotted pelt is that of a snow leopard -- that elusive and endangered species found in the mountains of central and south Asia. “A coat like that would probably cost $60,000-$80,000 in a big shop,” said Dr Rodney Jackson at a presentation he made recently on the status of his favorite subject. “Fortunately, changing norms of the fashion world and increasing consumer awareness (mean that) fewer people are wearing snow leopard pelts,” noted Dr Jackson, Conservation Director of the International Snow Leopard Trust. Still, the threat of extinction persists, he warns. “The demand for fur may have gone down but the demand for bones and body parts as marketable items for use in traditional Chinese medicine has gone up.” Further, conflict with humans is rapidly becoming the single most important issue, he said.

Abstract: Snow leopards occur near the snow line in northern Pakistan in the districts of Swat, Dir and Chitral of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), Muzaffarabad district in Azad Kashmir and Gilgit and Baltistan districts in the Northern Areas. Although a number of protected areas are present in the form of national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and game reserves (Table 1) where legal protection is available to all wildlife species, including snow leopards, the status of this endangered species is not improving satisfactorily. The reasons are many and range from direct persecution by livestock owners to the less than strict management of protected areas.
Because of remote and inaccessible locations and lack of proper communication with local communities, government officials and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) concerned with conservation find it difficult to obtain statistics on mortality of snow leopards. However, the killing of snow leopards is not uncommon. Because of the close and long-term association between local villagers and snow leopards, it is only through the support and cooperation of these peoples that protection of this endangered species can be assured against most of the existing threats. The effects of such cooperation has been clearly shown through some of the conservation projects of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) – Pakistan. Details of such projects and certain lessons that can be learned from these and similar projects are discussed in this paper.