Nepal has a long and very special history in snow leopard conservation. Research and conservation efforts in Nepal were path finding for the wider snow leopard community. In this month’s Webinar, we are delighted to welcome Gopal Khanal, who is currently working as Assistant Conservation Officer in Shey Phoksundo, the largest National Park of Nepal and home to a significant population of snow leopards. We also are joined by Dr. Som Ale, a member of SLN’s Committee, who has been working in snow leopard conservation in Nepal, for over two decades. Together, our guests bridge past and present, with a special focus on community based conservation, through the lens of policy and research. We also look towards Nepal’s snow leopard conservation agenda for the next decade.
Snow leopard research and conservation in Nepal: Past, Present and Future
Snow leopard research and conservation in Nepal: Past, Present and Future
The Snow Leopard Network is pleased to announce our fifth SLN webinar of 2020 where we travel to Nepal. This Webinar series aims explicitly to feature snow leopard range country national updates and experience. As our SLN committee chair, Dr. Lu Zhi, suggested as she launched the webinar series – it is a pleasure to take this opportunity to learn from each other and build links between our efforts across the snow leopard range.
Nepal has a long and very special history in snow leopard conservation. Research and conservation efforts in Nepal were path finding for the wider snow leopard community. In this month’s Webinar are delighted to welcome Gopal Khanal who is currently working as Assistant Conservation Officer in Shey Phoksundo, the largest National Park of Nepal home to a significant population of snow leopards. We also will be joined by Dr. Som Ale, a member of SLN’s Committee, who has been working in snow leopard conservation in Nepal for over two decades. Together our guests will bridge past and present with a special focus on community based conservation through the lens of policy and research. We will also look towards Nepal’s snow leopard conservation agenda for the next decade.
More on the talk: Nepal is believed to host 10% of the global snow leopard population. Since the early 1970s Nepal has adopted both an ecosystem approach (establishing protected areas) and species approach to conserve, research and monitor the country’s snow leopards. Gopal will share his thoughts on recent developments and give us insights on some promising recent snow leopard research and conservation efforts in Nepal. Som Ale will join as discussant and provide a longer term perspective of Nepal’s conservation efforts and will set this within future snow leopard conservation priorities.
More about our guests:
Gopal Khanal currently works for Shey Phoksundo National Park office, Dolpa as an Assistant Conservation Officer. He has been working on snow leopard research and conservation in the Nepal Himalayas since 2014. He completed his Master’s degree in wildlife biology and conservation. His master’s thesis examined the influence of wild prey and livestock on snow leopard predation on livestock in Nepal.
Som Ale spent over a decade working as a conservation manager in north central Nepal and was Officer in Charge of Nepal’s National Trust for Nature Conservation – Annapurna Conservation Area Project. Som now lives in the United States and serves as a professor of biology and ecology at the University of Illinois – Chicago. Dr. Ale is passionate about protecting the snow leopard in ways that benefit the animals, environment, culture, and community; and has developed powerful, unique, and engaging conservation initiatives.
Date/Time: August 25th, 2020 Tuesday 17:45 Kathmandu time (Please log into the meeting 5 min early to set up)
Location: ZOOM, to join this talk REGISTER HERE
Please note:
- If you have never used Zoom before, we recommend that you try the link 10 minutes before the start of the lecture.
- During the talk, please keep your microphone muted.
- Please feel free to write questions in the comment area and there will be time for questions/discussion at the end of the talk.
- The Zoom event is limited to 100 participants. Please register for the event and also sign in early to ensure your place.
Snow leopard conservation: Reflections from the past
We would like to invite you to our fourth SLN webinar of 2020. This webinar takes us back to consider snow leopard conservation efforts over the longer term. We are extremely pleased to welcome our guest Dr. Raghu Chundawat, who has followed snow leopard conservation since the 1980s.
Our guest is interviewed by Dr. Koustubh Sharma, for 30 min, followed by a 30 min discussion period with Dr. Joseph Fox, who joined us as a discussant. Raghu reflects on a time when very little was known about the snow leopard. In particular, he shares recollections of the very real challenges of studying snow leopards in the wild. Watch this very special Webinar where we travel to the past and hear important perspectives of conservation developing over this extensive stretch of time.
Population Assessment of the World’s Snow Leopards: The Why & How
We would like to invite you to our third SLN webinar of 2020. Having heard updates from China and Mongolia, July’s Webinar turns towards a global perspective of snow leopard conservation. We are extremely pleased to welcome our guests- Dr. David Borchers and Dr. Koustubh Sharma- who will take us into the world of numbers and statistics about snow leopards in a practitioner friendly way.
Our speakers, Dr. David Borchers and Dr. Koustubh Sharma, take us through the Why and the How of assessing the global snow leopard population. We discover the story of why (and when) the initiative of Population Assessment of the World’s Snow leopards (PAWS) emerged. We also discuss how PAWS can be achieved, including key ideas of spatial capture-recapture (SCR) and the power of SCR to analyse survey data. Finally we cover the latest developments in this fast-developing area of research.
Thank you to all our participants who attended the live event. If you missed it please watch the recording below.
A joint effort to map the snow leopard across Mongolia
We invite you to watch our second Snow Leopard Network webinar of this series; updates from snow leopard range countries. Our guest Dr. Gantulga Bayandonoi, from WWF-Mongolia, shares with us recent updates on a country level distribution survey of snow leopards in Mongolia. Dr. Bayandonoi’s presentation of 20 minutes is followed by a vibrant discussion on the conservation of the species and the National survey covering the entire snow leopard range of the country. Purejav Lkhagvajav, Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation Mongolia, joins us as guest discussant.
Thank you to all the participants who joined us live.
SLN Webinar; special guest Dr. Gantulga Bayandonoi
We invite you to our second SLN webinar of this series. We are pleased to welcome our guest Dr. Gantulga Bayandonoi who will share with us recent updates on a country level distribution survey of snow leopards in Mongolia.
Please register through the link below and help us spread the word and share the news with your colleagues and those who would be interested in attending.
Snow Leopard Webinar
An online webinar series from snow leopard experts across the world. Our guest snow leopard experts will share with you the latest developments in both science and conservation policy and practice across the snow leopard range. A brief, inspiring talk will be followed by a discussion period where we can explore ideas in further depth drawing on our experts experience and knowledge.
Date/Time: 30 June 2020 Tuesday (Please log into the meeting 5 min early to set up) 18:00 Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia time
Structure: 60 min webinar- 30 min Guest speaker presentation/30 min discussion. During the talk feel free to write questions in the chat section that we can take forward during the discussion section.
Guest Speaker: Dr. Gantulga Bayandonoi, WWF Mongolia; Guest Discussant: Purejav Lkhagvajav, Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation Mongolia
Title: A joint effort to map the snow leopard across Mongolia
Webinar talk: The Snow Leopard Network is inviting guests from across the snow leopard range as part of a webinar series to offer insights and share the latest developments in snow leopard conservation and science. We are excited to introduce our second guest, Dr. Gantulga Bayandonoi, who will focus his talk on a collaborative effort to map the snow leopard’s distribution across Mongolia. Mongolia is believed to be home to the second largest population of snow leopards in the world. WWF-Mongolia and SLCF-Mongolia, along with partner organizations, came together to take forward the first national assessment of snow leopard distribution that accounts for imperfect detection. The results will be used to guide conservation activities across the country.
More about our guest: Dr. Gantulga Bayandonoi is a biologist working on safeguarding Mongolia’s threatened species and has worked with WWF Mongolia since 2017. He is WWF Mongolia’s coordinator for the nationwide snow leopard population assessment. Together with his team and partners, this effort has led to surveying over 19,000 kms in transects across snow leopard habitat; a distance that is equivalent to almost half the earth’s circumference!
Location: ZOOM, to join this talk, REGISTER HERE
Please note:
-
- If you have never used Zoom before, we recommend that you try the link 10 minutes before the start of the lecture.
- Also note that as of May 30, 2020, all Zoom clients on older versions will receive a forced upgrade when trying to join meetings and this may take time to download.
- During the talk, please keep your microphone muted.
- Please feel free to write questions in the comment area and there will be time for questions/discussion at the end of the talk.
- The Zoom event is limited to 100 participants. Please register for the event and also sign in early to ensure your place.
Webinar by Dr Lu Zhi – Progress in Snow Leopard Conservation May 12, 2020
The Snow Leopard Network hosted our first ever Webinar on 12 May, 2020 and we were thrilled to have 162 people register for the event and 83 live participants on the day. Dr. LuZhi was our guest speaker and she was joined by Dr. Sandro Lovari as discussant.
Dr. LuZhi, Professor of Conservation Science at Peking University and the Executive Director of the Peking University Center for Nature and Society, has over 20 years of experience actively working in conservation issues in China; with a strong focus on community conservation in China’s mountainous areas. LuZhi founded the Shanshui Conservation Center, in 2007, which is a leading civil society organization promoting conservation in China. LuZhi is also the Snow Leopard Network’s Committee Chair and has been a pioneer in snow leopard conservation for over a decade.
We also had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Sandro Lovari as our discussant. Sandro brought knowledge and ideas from other areas of the snow leopard range, and is a distinguished scientist from University of Siena. He is also member of our Snow Leopard Network committee.
LuZhi shared a vivid update on Snow Leopard conservation, seen from the perspective of China’s wider effort on conservation. China is protecting huge areas, (approximately 18% of the countries total land area), as part of reaching its national and international conservation targets.
LuZhi also underlined the vast scale of conservation efforts needed in China for the protection of the snow leopard. For example, similar to other areas of the snow leopard range only 1.7% of the snow leopard range has been monitored through systematic camera trapping. Teams are however coming together, through partnerships such as the Snow Leopard Network-China, in order to cover larger areas and share good practices. Partnerships with governments and the private sector are also helping develop strategies for promoting the co-existence of people and wildlife across high mountain areas.
Ongoing threats to snow leopards that were discussed included, unmanaged feral dog populations, fencing that limit animal movement and lack of conservation capacity across sectors.
Looking ahead LuZhi described her vision for the future, including the arrival of a new generation of young conservationist to meet the challenge of scale.
We thank LuZhi and Sandro for the fascinating discussions. A big thank you to all our members for coming out in such large numbers to attend this first-ever event of the Snow Leopard Network.
SLN Webinar; special guest Dr. LuZhi
We invite you to our first SLN webinar of this series. Please join us in welcoming our guest speaker Dr. LuZhi, our SLN Committee chair, who will share with us more about the recent updates of snow leopard conservation in China.
Please register through the link below and help us spread the word and share the news with your colleagues and those who would be interested in attending.
Snow Leopard Webinar
An online webinar series from snow leopard experts across the world. Our guest snow leopard experts will share with you the latest developments in both science and conservation policy and practice across the snow leopard range. A brief, inspiring talk will be followed by a discussion period where we can explore ideas in further depth drawing on our experts experience and knowledge.
Date/Time: 12 May 2020 Tuesday (Please log into the meeting 5 min early to set up)
8:00am London time /12:00 Islamabad time/ 12:30 Delhi time/ 13:00 Bishkek time/ 15:00 Beijing time/ 15:00 Ulaanbaatar time/ 00:00 Seattle time
Structure: 60 min webinar- 30 min Guest speaker presentation/30 min discussion. During the talk feel free to write questions in the chat section that we can take forward during the discussion section.
Guest Speaker: Dr. LuZhi
Title: Progress in snow leopard conservation in China
Webinar talk: The Snow Leopard Network is inviting guests from across the snow leopard range as part of a webinar series to offer insights and share the latest developments in snow leopard conservation and science. Our first guest to kick off the series is Dr. LuZhi who will center her talk on China’s recent journey in conserving this remarkable species and symbol of Asia’s high mountains. China is host to an estimated 50% of snow leopard habitat and plays a key role in safeguarding the species for generations to come.
More about our guest: Dr. LuZhi, Professor of Conservation Science at Peking University and the Executive Director of the Peking University Center for Nature and Society, has over 20 years of experience actively working in conservation issues in China; with a strong focus on community conservation in China’s mountainous areas. LuZhi founded in 2007 the Shanshui Conservation Center which is a leading civil society organization promoting conservation in China. LuZhi is also SLN’s Committee Chair and been a pioneer in snow leopard conservation for over a decade.
Location: ZOOM, to join this talk, REGISTER HERE
Please note:
Please register before the event. If you have never used Zoom before, we recommend that you try the ZOOM link 10 minutes before the start of the lecture. This will prompt you to download the zoom software. During the talk, please keep your microphone muted. Please feel free to write questions in the comment area and there will be time for questions/discussion at the end of the talk.