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WWF-Pak, IMC hold travelling nature carnival

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012\01\23\story_23-1-2012_pg7_10

KARACHI: As many as 2,500 people from various spheres of life, including schools, colleges and universities students, participated in annual Travelling Nature Carnival held here at PAF Museum Sunday, organised by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-Pakistan in collaboration with Indus Motor Company (IMC).

The carnival was aimed at motivating and involving youth and general public in valuing the rich natural heritage of Pakistan, and supporting conservation initiatives.

Among its several engaging activities, the most innovative was the 3D display model competition. Hundreds of students participated in live presentations to the judges and guests, featuring themes such as habitat conservation of endangered species (snow leopard, green turtle, Indus dolphin), water conservation, a green idea, solid waste management (recycle, reuse, reduce), global warming and climate change, ecotourism, energy conservation, and green architecture.

The winning institutes were bestowed with shields and certificates. There were 150 stalls set up by schools, universities and commercial entities.

The carnival also arranged environment puppet show, live musical performance, magic show, environment games and quizzes, nature art exhibition, theatre, and environment debate competition.

Speaking on the occasion, WWF-Pakistan’s Regional Director Rab Nawaz pointed out that through the carnival environmental messages could be conveyed to the large number of audience. He further said that children are the stewards for change; they should be equipped with conservation practices, he urged.

Senior Manager Corporate Relation, WWF Pakistan Marriyum Aurangzeb said that for past 10 years, WWF Pakistan’s nature carnival had been playing its role as a unique endeavour that brought together thousands of visitors, such as students, families, corporate sector, media, government organisations, conservation organisations and general public. It provides a collective platform for building knowledge and interest in responsible action, ecologically conscious development and sustainable living.

MD IMC Pervaiz Ghias was the guest of honour at the carnival. While speaking to the participants, he said that the Toyota environmental programme launched in 2011, in partnership with WWF-Pakistan, being implemented in 100 schools, 15 colleges and 10 universities, was a great success.

IMC is proud to be a part of the carnival and hopes to make the young generation of Pakistan an environmentally sensitive generation and a guardian of our natural resources.

Programme Coordinator Indus for All Programme Nasir Ali Panhwar stressed on the unique nature of carnival in terms of establishing diverse level of participation and an integrated approach towards nature conservation. He highlighted need of creating awareness about environmental issues with support of media.

Scientists snap rare photos of snow leopards in Tajikistan

Congratulations to all the SLN members involved in this project!

Tajik snow leopard

Telegraph.co.uk – A British-lead team of scientists has snapped rare intimate photographs of the elusive snow leopard on a remote mountain on the Tajik-Afghan border.

The photographs of the five snow leopards over a two month period in former Soviet Tajikistan suggest that the scientists may have discovered a hotspot for the endangered cat.

Dr Alex Diment, a scientist with Cambridge-based conservationist group Fauna and Flora International, was the expedition manager on the team of 25 people.

He described how they set up camera traps triggered by motion sensors along the side of an untouched valley for two weeks in August.

“We went up into the Wakhan range which is a mountain range on the border with Afghanistan,” Dr Diment said. “We’re pretty sure that it has never been surveyed for bio-diversity in that region.”

Snow leopards are so agile and so elusive that it is impossible for humans to physically track them.

Also in the group was Dr David Mallon, a snow leopard expert who is attached to Manchester Metropolitan University and is chairman of the Snow Leopard Network, a group dedicated to conserving the snow leopard.

Ten other scientists were Tajiks and the rest of the team were support staff.

The group returned to the valley two months later to collect their cameras and inspect the photographs.

“It was really surprising to have so many individuals,” he said of the snow leopards in the photographs. “I thought we might get one or two but to get five individuals in a small area, including a family with cubs was a great surprise. It was very exciting.”

The spotted pattern on the snow leopards’ white, grey body is unique to each cat, meaning they can be individually identified.

There are only an estimated 3,000 to 8,000 snow leopards left in the world. The wide estimate demonstrates the snow leopards’ elusiveness.

They typically live above an altitude of 4,000m on remote craggy mountains in Central Asia, China and Afghanistan. Trapping for their coats and a drop in prey have hit the snow leopard and driven them to the edge of extinction.

Photographs of the two cubs show them inspecting the cameras before they became so curious that they actually took one of the cameras away.

“We came back and we were missing a camera but had no idea what could have happened to it,” Dr Diment said.

The team searched without success and it wasn’t until they returned to the nearest city and looked at the memory card of another camera that they discovered the truth.

“There was the culprit stealing the camera,” he said. “They stole one of the cameras but the paired camera pointing at the other one showed them nicking it.”

Snow leopards retain a mystical allure in Central Asia and are depicted on the emblems of cities and organisations across the region. Almaty, Central Asia’s financial capital, and Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital, both have snow leopards on their emblems.

In the Soviet Union, mountaineers who climbed all five peaks over the 7,000 metres were given the Snow Leopard Award.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tajikistan/9025294/Scientists-snap-rare-photos-of-snow-leopards-in-Tajikistan.html

New SLN Steering Committee Members

Voting for the 2012-2014 Snow Leopard Network Steering Committee was recently concluded.

Thank you to all members who voted, and congratulations to the newly elected Steering Committee members, who are as follows:

Chair:
David Mallon, Ph.D., Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Members:
Yash Veer Bhatnagar, Ph.D., Nature Conservation Foundation and Snow Leopard Trust (India Program)

Mukesh Chalise, Ph.D., Tribhuvan University, Nepal

Ahmad Khan, WWF Pakistan/Pakistan Wetlands Programme

Sibylle Noras, Snow Leopard Blog, Australia

Jennifer Snell Rullman, Snow Leopard Trust, USA

Dajun Wang, Ph.D., Peking University and Shanshui Conservation Centre, China

UNESCO Accepts World Heritage Site Nomination for Great Himalayan National Park

Already many National Parks across India have been honoured to have their names in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. Now joining them soon will be the Great Himalayan National Park located in Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh.

The nomination for the prestigious status for the National Park had been sent by the Himachal Pradesh state’s wildlife and forest department to UNESCO and the same has been accepted.

The National Park will be honoured with the title next year after its evaluation by a team of international wildlife experts from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (“ICUN”).

The topography of the Great Himalayan National Park is made up of alpine and coniferous forest, emerald pastures, snow capped peaks, steep valleys and a number of waterfalls and small streams that continue to flow throughout the year. Located at an altitude of 1500 to 6000 mm the National Park is spread over 1,171 sq kms. The park has one of the richest biodiversities in the Western Himalayas and a variety of flora, fauna and avian species can be spotted here.

The park remains snow covered for most part of the year. However here one can spot some of the many rare and endangered species such as wild mountain goats like the bharal, goral and serow, the brown bear, leopards and the elusive snow leopard, rare Nilgiri Tahr and red fox among many others. The Great Himalayan National Park also houses a large number of bird species like Monal, Koklass and Western Tragopan. Trekking in these Himalayan mountains is the best way to spot this exotic wildlife

In addition to accepting the nomination of the Great Himalayan National Park as a World Heritage Site, the nominations of three other parks and sanctuaries have also been accepted by UNESCO- the Bhitarkanika National Park in Orissa, home to the largest population of giant salt water crocodiles in Asia, the Neora Valley National Park in West Bengal and the Desert National Park located in Jaisalmer in Thar Desert in Rajasthan. One can spot here the Great Indian Bustard, a magnificent but endangered bird species and a number of fossils, both plants and animals which date as old as 180 million years.

Some of the famous National Parks in India that are already listed on UNESCO’s World Heritage Site list are Kaziranga National Park and Manas National Park in Assam, Keoladeo Ghana National Park in Rajasthan, Sunderban National Park in West Bengal and Nanda Devi National Park and Valley of Flowers National Park in Uttarakhand.

The Himachal Pradesh state government in addition to making a successful impact in the World Heritage list nominations has many other projects stated to benefit the wildlife.

The Himalayan Snow Leopard Research Centre would soon be developed near Kibbar village of Spiti valley at a cost of Rs. 5.15 crore to preserve this wild life species in their natural habitat and carry research and development programme over the same time.

The state government will also shortly start a breeding programme of the Himalayan monal, a pheasant species, near Manali. The Conservation Breeding Phesantry for Himalayan Monal will be developed near Manali by spending Rs. 2 crore in the first phase.

http://www.rang7.com/news/national-park/unesco-accepts-world-heritage-site-nomination-for-great-himalayan-national-park-993.htm

Five Snow Leopard Conservation Grant Recipients Announced

The Snow Leopard Conservation Grants Program (SLCGP) will be funding five projects in 2012.

This year, thanks largely to the generosity of our important partner the Whitley Fund for Nature (www.whitleyaward.org), we are able to provide an unprecedented level of support for snow leopards since the inception of SLCGP. This is a 60 % improvement over last year.

SLN is also grateful to the Snow Leopard Conservancy (www.snowleopardconservancy.org) for continuing their support, and to the Snow Leopard Trust (www.snowleopard.org) for giving even more than in earlier years.


The selected projects are:
– Flagship Species of the Pamir Range, Pakistan: Exploring Status and Conservation Hotspots (Jaffar Ud Din and Muhammad Ali Nawaz: Pakistan)

– Snow leopard toolkits for monastic leaders in Bhutan (Susan Higgins, Nawang Auden, Broughton Coburn: US, Bhutan)

– Re-assessment of livestock depredation by snow leopard in the Phu Valley of Manang after 17 years (Ashish Adhikari: Nepal)

– Snow leopard (Panthera uncia) response to habitat, prey and anthropogenic factors at multiple spatial scales in a multi-use landscape (Rishi Kumar Sharma: India)

– Assessing the distribution, status and conservation needs of snow leopard in a natural World Heritage in Sichuan, China (Wei Liu: US, China)

A review panel of 16 experts contributed their time and effort in helping select the applicants.
Further details of the selected projects and the review panel will shortly be posted on our website, https://snowleopardnetwork.org.

Snow leopards return to Kargil areas

Jammu, November 28 – Tribune India
With peace in the Kargil sector, snow leopards are again seen in the area. Due to the Kargil War in 1999, most of the wildlife species, including snow leopards, had abandoned their habitats in Kargil. However, with the improvement in the situation, a big cat with two cubs had been spotted in the area.

Earlier, locals claimed that they had seen the animal, though there was no evidence of the presence of the big cat, post-Kargil War.

Jigmet Takpa, Regional Wildlife Warden, Ladakh, told The Tribune over the phone that these big cats, having tails as long as their bodies, which had almost abandoned their habitats in Kargil after 1999, had returned to the area.

“Though Leh and Kargil are the best suitable habitats for this endangered specie, the snow leopards were not seen in Kargil during the past few years,” said Takpa.

He added, “Poaching was a major problem. However, it has now been brought under control and the big cats can once again be seen in Kargil.”

Takpa said there were nearly 400 snow leopards in the region comprising Leh and Kargil districts.

“We have one national park and two wildlife sanctuaries here. These animals move about freely in an area of 97,000 sq km,” he said.

Giving further details, Takpa said the Wildlife Department had launched various projects in association with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other agencies to save and attract more snow leopards. “The results are very positive. The situation has improved in Leh also, where these big cats can be easily seen,” he said.

Takpa lauded the role of the Army in the return of the snow leopards to Kargil. “The Army has played a major role in controlling poaching, which was the biggest threat to the animal. No one can move freely with a weapon, without the permission of the Army. These animals face no threat from poachers now.”
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20111129/j&k.htm#4
Source: http://www.resourceshimalaya.org/index.php?s=trcontent&a=browse&con_id=78b1a0c3bc7e0af751de2d58e0aa6036&title=Dec%2001;%20No.184

First camera-trap image of Nepal’s Snow Leopard released

Kathmandu, Nepal – The first picture of a snow leopard taken by a camera trap on 24 October 2011 in Khambachen valley of Kangchenjunga was released today by WWF-Nepal.

Ten camera traps (Moultrie D- 40) were installed in the valleys of Nagphinda, Khambachen, Lohanak and Jimbubari in Kangchenjunga Conservation Area in October 2011 under a pioneering initiative to monitor snow leopards in Nepal’s Himalayas. The monitoring is being led by local communities through the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area Management Council and the Snow Leopard Conservation Committee-Ghunsa. It is expected that the camera traps will guide the estimation of snow leopard populations in the future.

“The camera traps are a means to empower local communities to lead conservation efforts of snow leopards,” stated Mr. Anil Manandhar, Country Representative of WWF-Nepal. “With habitat loss, poaching and retaliatory killing by herders posing as major threats to snow leopards, community stewardship in conservation is key to the protection of snow leopards,” he added.

The camera traps were installed with the support of WWF-Nepal and Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation through financial assistance received from WWF-UK.

For more information, contact:

Akash Shrestha
Communications and Marketing Manager, WWF Nepal
Email: akash.shrestha@wwfnepal.org Mobile: +977 9801057566

Simrika SHARMA
Communications Officer, WWF Nepal
Email: simrika.sharma@wwfnepal.org Mobile: +977 9801092692

Jackson eyed for Indianapolis Prize

By Emily Charrier-Botts INDEX-TRIBUNE ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

Nov 21, 2011 – 06:57 PM

Dr. Rodney Jackson is hoping third time really is the charm after learning he has been again named as a finalist for the prestigious Indianapolis Prize, awarded for efforts in wildlife conservation.

Jackson is the founder of the Boyes Hot Springs-based Snow Leopard Conservancy, which has been working since 1986 to protect the endangered cats in the 12 countries they inhabit. The Indianapolis Prize is a $100,000 grant awarded every other year to a person who has done extraordinary work to save a particular species. Jackson was named as one of 29 finalists picked from across the globe for the 2012 prize, after being named one of the six finalists in both 2008 and 2010.

“It’s an honor to get it the third time,” Jackson said. “It’s encouraging, that’s for sure.”

Jackson is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on snow leopards after intensively studying the cats since 1981. Now, he works to protect the cats by reaching out to the residents of the mountainous communities where the endangered species live.

“Where do you go first? You ask the locals, they know what’s going on,” Jackson said.

Jackson explained that local residents can be a snow leopard’s biggest predator or biggest advocate. Many who live side-by-side with the cats find them to be a pest because snow leopards are known to feed on livestock.

“If your livelihood is based on your livestock, this is a major issue … One of the reasons snow leopards are trapped, poisoned and killed is when they get into those livestock pens,” Jackson explained. “The only way to deal with this is to minimize the loss of livestock or to find a way to make their livelihood off of the snow leopards.”

He said the answer is as simple as putting covers on the livestock pens to keep the cats out. If he wins the Indianapolis Prize, he said at least a portion of the money would be spent on predator proofing livestock pens for native populations.

“It’s very easy to predator proof so the snow leopards can’t get in,” Jackson said.

He also teaches local residents how to make money off their endangered neighbors by leading tourists on treks into the mountains to spot the elusive cats.

One of Jackson’s earliest research efforts involves mapping the range and movement of the cats to better focus his conservation efforts. He uses both radio collars to track the cats over long distances, as well as genetically testing fecal matter to understand which cats are living in the area and how far they travel.

“It helps us predict where the cats might occur,” he said. “It also tells us where the most efficient places to do our conservation would be.”

Right now, he said his efforts are specifically focused on Mongolia. Mineral-rich mines line the mountains, and are being heavily tapped to meet the need for natural resources in China, Jackson said. This has led to more highways and rail lines into the mountains, disrupting the snow leopard’s habitat. Working with conservation groups in the area, Jackson said, “We want to see if we can come up with some plans to offset the impact of those mines.”

The Indianapolis Prize is awarded by the Indianapolis Zoo, but the funding is provided by the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation. A nominating committee that selected the 29 nominees will narrow the list down to six finalists, who will be announced in the spring. Following that, a jury of experts in the field of conservation will select a winner, to be announced Sept. 29, during the Indianapolis Prize Gala.

Until then, Jackson said he’s keeping his focus on snow leopards. “It’s not as much the action of individual people, but the actions of groups of people working together,” he said.

In addition to continuing with their conservation work, Jackson and his partner Darla Hillard are finishing up a new e-book to be released in December. The book, “Vanishing Tracks 2,” follows up on Hillard’s 1989 book, “Vanishing Tracks,” which detailed four years of living on the mountainous cliffs in Western Nepal while conducting the world’s seminal research on snow leopards. The new book catches up with what the conservancy has learned since then, with proceeds from the book benefitting the nonprofit organization.

“We’ll have it in every format – for e-readers, for iPads for your computer,” Hillard said.

To find “Vanishing Tracks 2” or learn more about the Snow Leopard Conservancy, visit www.snowleopardconservancy.org.

http://www.sonomanews.com/News-2011/Jackson-eyed-for-Indianapolis-Prize/

Snow leopard – Poster child of the Himalayas: Bhutan Climate Summit

Nov 18, 2011
Save snow leopards to save Himalayas

Saving its trans-Himalayan habitat is the first step to saving the species
Bhutan Climate Summit In the face of climate vulnerability in the Himalayan and trans-Himalayan regions, it is important to secure connected climate resilient habitat areas for the snow leopard (Panthera uncia) in the large conservation landscape.

In a presentation on snow leopard conservation and climate change, a conservation scientist of the world wildlife fund (WWF) in United States, Dr Eric Wikramanayake, said snow leopards are a large carnivore with large home ranges, and that an effective snow leopard conservation cannot be done in small fragmented patches. “They need large special areas.”

He also said snow leopards live in a relatively narrow band of alpine habitat, the broken rugged terrain between 3,000 and 4,500m above sea level.

Dr Eric Wikramanayake, speaking during the side event of the upcoming Bhutan Climate Summit, said that a study on the climate vulnerability of this iconic and mystical species in the Himalayas showed that the snow leopard is the top carnivore of the Himalayan mountains, and is actually a species that links three countries of India, Nepal and Bhutan.

“It’s global population, including the trans-Himalayan region and central Asia, is guesstimated at around 4,500 to 7,000 and they occur at a population density of 1 to 5 snow leopards in every 100 sq km, depending on habitat and prey availability, but they are killed and persecuted in all ranges,” he said.

Dr Eric Wikramanayake also said that, based on the biological attributes and threats, snow leopards are listed as endangered species in IUCN Red List of threatened species. “But now a new threat to snow leopard and its habitat looms and that is climate change.”

It is predicted that the temperatures in the Himalayas will increase by three degree Celsius by 2050, and by about 5 degree Celsius at the end of the century. Precipitation is also predicted to increase as the monsoonal rains become more intense, and even exert the influence all the way to the Tibetan plateau.

The conservation scientist said regionally as much of about 30 percent of the alpine habitats will be lost, but more importantly, there will be about 40 percent of habitat loss in Nepal and about 50 percent of loss in Bhutan and about 20 percent in India.

The warmer and wetter conditions are projected to cause flora from the lower elevations to move upslope and intrude into the alpine areas, which is the habitat of the snow leopard, and reduce the extend of available habitat, fragmenting them into small patches.

“As a top vibrant carnivore, with specialised habitat requirement, snow leopards can be considered as an umbrella species, further high Himalayan biodiversity as well as the indicator of the species changes that we expect to take place in these high Himalayan ecosystem,” Dr Eric Wikramanayake said.

Explaining a climate modeling of snow leopard habitat, he said, in the Himalayas, there will be loss of alpine habitat along the southern boundaries of the ecosystem, but there will also be significant intrusion of forests along the rivers that cut into the mountains, isolating and fragmenting the alpine habitat.

The conservation scientists also said it is a must to create a mechanism and forum for conservation and management of the alpine ecosystem. “We need to think about cascading impacts of ecological interactions and work with local communities for sustainable livestock grazing and medicinal plant collections,” Dr Eric Wikramanayake said.

He said that as some of the large mammals that live in the lower forest will also move upslope and begin to compete with snow leopard for resources and some, like in Bhutan, tigers will predate on snow leopards.

Dr Eric Wikramanayake also said there are also other concerns and implication beyond the snow leopard.

He said that people have been using these alpine grasslands for grazing and in recent years, livestock herds have grown considerably, resulting in depredation of physiologically sensitive high altitude grasslands.

“Even now, people hunt wild animals but in future, as resource competition increases in smaller spaces, the intensity of persecution of wild animals is likely to increase, as snow leopard will rely on domestic livestock and this will increase human-snow leopard conflict.”

The conservation scientist said that it is important to adopt these recommendations, as saving snow leopard is not about saving the species but saving Himalayas, saving the high altitudes ecosystem and reducing climate vulnerability of biodiversity, of people, and economies of the countries.

“It’s about sustaining the ecological processes and environmental flows, especially water that affects millions of people far down stream from the actual snow leopard habitat,” Dr Eric Wikramanayake said.

By Tashi Dema
http://www.kuenselonline.com/2011/?p=21201