Need for stricter regime in Pakistan (editorial)

Dawn Editorial
Monday, 08 Nov, 2010

THE federal environment ministry has informed parliament that a number of indigenous fauna — the snow leopard, markhor, the Balochistan bear, houbara bustard and the Indus river dolphin among them — are listed as endangered species by international conservation bodies.

The briefing came ostensibly with a view to emphasising the need to put in place additional conservation mechanisms and stricter vigilance and punitive measures to curb illegal hunting. Disturbingly enough, another report brought to light the gross violation of the ban imposed on hunting in Chitral district by none other than the president of a local village conservation committee.

The police reportedly recovered a number of markhor hides from the house of the violator before booking him.

Poaching is a multimillion-dollar illegal trade that goes on unabated in much of the developing world, with Africa, Asia and South America being the main originating points.

Pakistan can learn a lesson from the strict conservation regime that India has implemented to curb illegal hunting and to save the environment.

Vigilant Indian authorities have not spared even the most popular of film celebrities in recent years when it has come to enforcing environmental and wildlife laws. A Bollywood superstar was restrained from cutting down a tree located within the walls of his house; another superstar was fined and imprisoned for shooting a deer.

In Pakistan, one has yet to hear of any such meaningful enforcement of the law where it does exist. Our municipal authorities routinely fell trees in the cities and execute development projects without the required environment impact assessment; in the countryside much of the hunting of endangered species is done by those who wield power and influence.

Implementation of a stricter vigilance and punitive regime is long overdue. It is needed urgently if we are to conserve a wide variety of indigenous flora and fauna.

http://news.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/need-for-stricter-regime-810

Climatic calamities and endangered species

Written by Syed Mujahid Ali Shah, by email

15 August 2010 The recent heavy rains in northern mountainous belts of Pakistan are hardly going to spare wild fauna from devastating their habitats as that of human population.

Among all such animals, the most concerned specie is snow leopard. They are already threatened being left only a few hundreds in these mountain ranges due to ongoing prey depletion of theirs following dry conditions caused by ever increasing temperature trends. But a wet calamity of heavy rains during recent weeks anticipates a new threat.

The unusual heavy summer rainfall situations are opposite to that of normal weather conditions of snow leopard habitats in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges of Gilgit Baltistan and Chitral. This drastic change in climate can create vegetation rich landscape situation where snow leopards and its prey species cannot live.

As the ideal habitat of these animals is open semi desert rocky mountains—out of dense vegetations like those of Chilghoza pine near nival zones of Himalayas and Karakoram. On the other hand huge rainfall situations, as some recently recorded 100 mm/h in Baltistan and Ladakh regions, being semi desert rocky hills, they are easily eroded and lose most of the soil. What leaves behind may be just rock, unable to produce enough fodder for the species of Markhor, ibex, Marcopolo sheep and the musk deer on which snow leopards thrive. Isn’t the world becoming so unsafe for both human and animals from carbon emissions in bulk? If timely steps were not taken to cut the greenhouse gases by the industrialised nations, such species would just wither away.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?section=openspace&xfile=data/openspace/2010/august/openspace_august16.xml

Innovative conservation project in Pakistan sees a slow but sure rise in the number of the endangered big cats

Endangered snow leopard clawing its way back: Innovative conservation project in Pakistan sees a slow but sure rise in the number of the endangered big cats

Zofeen Ebrahim in Karachi, for IPS, part of the Guardian Environment Network guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 August 2010 16.41 BST Article history

An endangered snow leopard. Photograph: Rupak De Chowdhuri/REUTERS

For more than 10 years, Shafqat Hussain has been on the trail of the endangered snow leopard. He has heard the beast’s growl, and has seen its pugmarks against a snowy track. But his dream, of coming eye-to-eye with the elusive nocturnal feline, remains unfulfilled. “If you’ve seen the cat, you’ve seen the Holy Grail,” says Hussain.

However, he is not as much “driven by sighting the animal, as ensuring its survival”, says the 41-year-old Hussain, an environmentalist and anthropology professor at Trinity College in the United States.

Snow leopards are globally “endangered”, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, with total population estimated at between 4,000 and 7,000.

While the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) bans the trade of snow leopards and its body parts, the wild feline – found only in the mountainous regions of central and south Asia – faces much antagonism from local herders who kill them in retaliation for attacks on their goats, Hussain says.

In 1999, Hussain started an innovative insurance programme in two Baltistan villages, named Project Snow Leopard, with funding from the Royal Geographical Society and the U.S.-based Snow Leopard Conservancy.

“I’m not totally indifferent to the loss the local community bears at the loss of their goats,” Hussain told IPS in a telephone interview during his annual visit to Skardu – the capital town of Baltistan, a northern Pakistani region bordering Xinjiang, China.

His “alternate approach”, Hussain explains, “helps in the conservation and protection of the snow leopards, but also compensates the local herders for every goat killed by the feline, on the condition that the villagers will not kill it”.

Some six months ago, a snow leopard attacked Ghulam Mehdi’s herd in Hushey village in Baltistan. “They (Project Snow Leopard) paid me a compensation of 4,500 rupees (52 U.S. dollars),” says Mehdi, a 35-year-old goat herder.

Mehdi has insured all his goats. “We pay two rupees (2 cents) per month for each goat. The project registers our livestock and keeps count,” he says. “They only compensate if the goat has been killed by a leopard, not by a wolf or another wild animal. They can tell which animal has attacked our goats.”

The key to the success of the programme – which has over 5,000 herders in it – is that the villagers own and run it. Residents have been trained to use and maintain remote cameras installed at various locations to monitor and study the snow leopard.

Project Snow Leopard has expanded to 10 Pakistani villages, and has been replicated in neighbouring countries like Nepal, China and India.

Indeed, “such programmes only succeed if the community is involved,” says Ejaz Ahmad, the deputy director general of the World Wildlife Fund Pakistan. Similar programmes are underway for the common leopard in the resort towns of the Galiaath region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

“Over the years,” he explains, “there is less and less reporting of the community involved in retaliatory killing of the both the species of the cats.”

Humans are the biggest threat to the survival of snow leopards, found in the Himalayan mountain ranges in Afghanistan, China, India, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. They have been spotted as far north as Siberia.

Weighing between 27 and 54 kilogrammes, the snow leopard can grow to lengths of up to 130 centimetres and sits at the top of the food chain. “One less species of the cat can cause the ecosystem to topple,” says Hussain.

This can trigger environmental changes such as the denudation of vegetation cover, he explains. It can cause the population of wild goats to increase, which may lead to degradation of pastures that in turn causes soil erosion.

Based on a survey he conducted in 2003, Hussain estimates there are some 450 snow leopards left in Pakistan, spread across Chitral in the Gilgit-Baltistan territory; in the Dir, Swat, Kohistan districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; and in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

“Its population grows, slowly,” Hussain says, confident he will find improved figures when he carries out the next survey in 2013.

But snow leopards also continue to attack domesticated animals, though there is no scarcity of natural prey like the ibex and the markhor. “It’s easier to kill a goat than stalking wild prey,” explains Hussain.

Another reason for these attacks is the rapidly growing human population that is encroaching on the leopard’s habitat. “But even that is not so much a concern as the attitude,” Hussain points out. “There is a growing intolerance of the human race to let other species exist.”

“The local people always held the view that the leopard was a threat that needed to be eliminated,” Hussain says. “Over the centuries, with advancement in weapons, the negative slant has been transformed into negative action and thus its indiscriminate killing.”

“There is a lot of pressure on the wild animals,” acknowledges Ahmad of WWF. But he opines that it is not easy for the leopard to attack goats as herders take extra precautions. “The feline will only attack when its natural prey is unavailable and the cat is very hungry.”

With a sprinkling of 212 villages across 50 percent of the snow leopard’s habitat, Hussain acknowledges that his project has long way more to go. “Protecting and conserving animal species is the responsibility of the state,” he says. “Hopefully we’ve provided a model to emulate.”

Letter to The Daily Times Editor, Pakistan Recommending scientific panel in Gilgit-Baltistan to monitor snow leopard

Letters to the Editor, The Daily Times, 41-N, Industrial Area, Gulberg II, Lahore, Pakistan Phone: 92-42-5878614-19; Fax: 92-42-5878620

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Endangered species

Sir: The northern mountainous regions of the Himalayas, Karakoram, Hindu Kush and Pamir in Gilgit-Baltistan host some rare animals like the snow leopard and the Marco Polo sheep. However, the forests of Chilgoza Pine are under threat due to the surge in population, growing tourism, illegal hunting and business activities.

Consequently, natural resource depletion and wild habitat degradation have become an obvious phenomenon. In this alarming situation, scientific research and investigation of the current status of biodiversity becomes necessary. The existing official set-up of the forest and wildlife departments lacks foresight. In my view, a multi-disciplinary panel of scientists and researchers is required who would publish a red book of endangered species annually. So far, most of the research has been conducted by a handful of experts who come from western universities, or by a couple of interested officers belonging to the forest department.

The concerned authorities are requested to monitor the impact of climate change and growing population on these areas. A scientific observatory panel that can analyse critical trends in the endangered wild species population and suggest sustainable steps for their conservation is the need of the hour.

SYED MUJAHID ALI SHAH
Germany

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\08\03\story_3-8-2010_pg3_7

Snow leopard attacks bulls in Goharabad, Gulmit, Pakistan (9 April 2008)

The Big Cat attacks Bulls in Goharabad, Gulmit
Posted on April 9, 2008 by Pamir Times

By G.Nasir

Three Bulls were attacked by a snow leoperd at Goharabad, Gulmit. One of the bulls was badly wounded and had to be slaughtered while the the other two survived despite of bad injuries. This is the second incident of its kind during a span of four months. Earlier, in January this year, a snow leoperd had played havoc with cattle entering a cattle house in Odver ward of Gulmit village. The bulls injured and killed during this attack belonged to Safar Baig, Ayub Khan and Saeed Ahmad, all residents of Gulmit village.

http://pamirtimes.net/2008/04/09/the-big-cat-attacks-bulls-in-goharabad-gulmit/

Endangered Species: Leopard on the spot in Phakar, Pakistan

by S.Mujahid Ali Shah
Sunday, 22 Mar, 2009 | 02:34 AM PST |

This is a story about my village called Phakar, in the Nagar Valley 80 km northeast to Gilgit in the Karakoram Mountains. The average altitude is 2600M with mountain cliffs and caves, some of them being totally inaccessible for humans. I live in the northern deep corner of the village called Gutum which means Deep Valley in Brushasky.

It so happened that a snow leopard family chose a cliff called Chokobat about 200 meters north to my house to live and raise cubs. One day a woman grazing her flock, saw a goat belonging to our neighbors fall down Mount Chokobat to Korang , a deep, narrow and steep gully beneath the lower village of Ghamadass, with Hunza river beneath. It was a snow leopard that had killed the goat; as it throws the prey away after sucking the blood from its throat.

The next day she went with her son to the caves some 200 metres north of my house behind the cliff of Chokobat to look for the den. They could n’t proceed beyond a certain point as the terrain was deviously dangerous.

Following the first strike, the snow leopard killed six more of the village cattle. A cub was killed by one of our hunters and the following night the parents of the cub terrified the village with their roaring and nobody dared to step out.

A week later, behind the mount Uyum Tong which lies east to my house, a woman saw two leopards as she was about to enter the cattle house to milk her goats. She quickly shut the door and bolted it with an iron chain, rushing back to the house crying ‘tha tha tha’, which means snow leopard.

Finally when the snow leopard entered a cattle house in Nagra and Hunza from an opening in the roof called sagam, (meant for light); the Hadulkutz clan decided to catch it alive. They called Meherban Ali from the Nazarbekutz clan. He was a tall man known for catching wild beasts. He cut a long branch of a poplar tree and went up the cattle house roof, pressing the branch to the leopard’s throat, while four young men entered the cattle house and chained both the leopards. The whole village rewarded him with a kilo of flour per family.

After much debate of what to do with the animals, it was eventually decided that instead of killing them and decorating the house with leopard skins, they would be kept alive.

Syed Yaha Shah, the pioneer Nature Conservation activist from Northern Areas was contacted who promptly arrived from Minapin to Phakar in an NGO pick up. He spoke to the people about the rare species they had captured and that Meherban Ali would be rewarded by the government and the NGO for breaking a thousand year tradition of not killing the beast.

Both animals were driven to Gilgit by the oldest driver of Phakar in his jeep, along with Meherban Ali, three village elders and Syed Yahya himself.

Two years later, I returned to my village on completion of my Masters at Karachi University. I met Meherban Ali who told me that the government had not yet given him any reward or appreciation. Syed Yahya Shah had written a book Tauze ul Wsail where he mentioned the story. I told him that the book had been dedicated to Meherban Ali and his friends.

He smiled but was not as happy as he would have been if he had received recognition from the government.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/in-paper-magazine/images/endangered+species+leopard+on+the+spot

New challenges in conserving Pakistani snow leopards

* Only 300 to 420 wild snow leopards left in mountain ranges of Pakistan
* Snow leopards’ habitat threatened by climate change, rising temperatures

By Syed Mujahid Ali Shah

In Pakistan, the northern mountain ranges of the Himalayas — Karakoram , Hindukush and Pamir — Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan host one of the most fascinating animals of the world: the snow leopard. The magnificent animal is on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red-list of endangered species.

According to a recent scientific study by Yale University, there are 300 to 420 estimated snow leopards left in these snow-covered mountain ranges of Pakistan, out of a total estimated world population of 4,000 to 7,000. This region is the main corridor of connecting bigger populations of snow leopards living in Pakistan, Central Asia, China, India and Nepal.

Climate change and increasing temperatures have caused fast degradation of the bio-tops in these mountains, which also host wild species of ibex, Marcopolo sheep, blue sheep, Astor Markhor and the musk deer, on which the snow leopard depends.

This has resulted in a tough inter and intra-specie survival competition. Due to food shortage in its natural sanctuaries, snow leopards have started moving down to villages in search of food and frequent encounters with cattle herds are now being reported from villages near Khunjerab National Park and Central Karakoram National Park in Hunza-Nagar district. Two decades ago, the government started ‘trophy hunting’ programmes in collaboration with mountain villagers in these regions to protect the snow leopard and its prey. Such hunting expeditions cost $3,000 to $80,000 and 80 percent of the money goes directly to the mountain communities, while 20 percent goes to the Forest and Wildlife Department in Gilgit-Baltistan.

The project has showed positive results in stopping illegal hunting of Marcopolo sheep, ibex, Astore Markhor and blue sheep.

Faced with an alarming future scenario in the shape of critical depletion of the snow leopard’s prey species, the conservation of wild fauna in these mountains will need more than just relying on trophy hunting projects.

As a new protection strategy, measures can be taken in the form of incentive programmes for the villagers to help them conserve wild life hot spots, as well as new awareness and educational campaigns on mass-level in these mountain regions.

As we are already on the verge of losing this endangered wild species — mainly due to lack of awareness and direct dependency of the local population on natural resources — the world should show responsibility by realising the value of Pakistani snow leopards and play its role in protecting them through economic and educational means.

Syed Mujahid Ali Shah is a student of Landscape Ecology and Nature Conservation in Germany.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C07%5C21%5Cstory_21-7-2010_pg7_15

Snow Leopard Hunted Markhor (Chitral)

http://www.groundreport.com/Business/Snow-Leopard-Hunted-Markhot/2917960by G. H. Farooqui February 15, 2010
Snow leopard hunted Markhor CHITRAL: A snow Leopard successfully hunted a Markhor at Shahresham area of Toshi conservation territory Divisional Forest officer of Wild Life Imtiaz Hussain Lal confirmed killing of a Markhor by a Snow leopard. He said that this is the fist attempt of a Snow leopard who hunted and killed a Markhor in this winter season. He said earlier that a foreign TV channel team has arrived here to shoot snow leopard hunting but snow leopard was not came down to ground areas and now he entered the inhabitants of markhor. Hence Shahzada Gul general Secretary of Al-Burkhan village conservation Committee (VCC) disclosed that this is second attempt and hunting of a snow leopard where a Markhor was his target and he successfully killed her and eaten. Dead body of Markhor is lying on river bank at Garamchishma road while snow leopard also lying there near to Markhor and a large number of people approaching there to see snow leopard. Shahzada Gul said that existing of Snow leopard is a good act and our tourism especially Eco tourism can be promoted promptly by this way. He said that hundred of Markhor and Ibex living in Toshi area and Snow leopard came their in their search to hunt and eat them. These Markhor and Ibex came down at Afternoon time to drink water from the river. G.H. Farooqi PO Bxo No. 50 GPO Chitral Pakistan phone No. 03025989602, 0943-302295, 414418 Email: gulhamad@gmail.com

A Force for Endangered Species: George Schaller

By Patrice O’Shaughnessy of the New York Daily News

Tuesday, February 24th 2009, 1:24 AM

He’s an unassuming man, with gray hair, pale eyes and a measured voice. But if not for George Schaller, there’d probably be a lot less spectacular beauty in the world.

At 75, he has devoted half a century to saving endangered creatures and habitats all over the planet. It’s a never-ending task.

“You can never relax, and say something is okay,” he said, and noted a new threat.

The influx of Chinese workers to Africa, he said, has spawned a trade in lion bones, sent back to China for medicinal purposes.

“In Kenya, they put an insecticide in cow carcasses, and they kill off the whole pride,” he said. “There are only about 20,000 lions left in the world.”

Schaller is on the case.

And he says he’ll keep at his conservation efforts “for another 25 years.”

The senior conservationist for the Wildlife Conservation Society, Schaller has an office in the Bronx Zoo, but you’ll rarely see him there.

He visits animals in the wild, living for months or years at a time observing snow leopards in Pakistan, gorillas in Rwanda, lions in the Serengeti, pandas in China and the last Asiatic cheetahs in Iran to better learn how to protect them.

We caught up with him at the zoo last week, where he has been a researcher in animal behavior with the WCS since 1966, before he embarks on a round of trips to Iran, Brazil and Tibet.

Schaller was deemed “perhaps the greatest force for conservation in more than a century” by National Geographic magazine.

His efforts have led to the protection of threatened jungles and forests in Asia and South America, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Discover magazine said he is considered the finest field biologist of our time.

Schaller has spent 50 years up close with exotic animals, tracking them, jotting notes in a small notebook and taking photographs, doing it the old-fashioned way.

He conducted a groundbreaking ecological study of mountain gorillas when he was 25, becoming the first scientist to live in their habitat. Now he is focusing on Marco Polo sheep, notable for their majestic spiral horns.

“Professors said gorillas were too dangerous, but I found them very congenial. They’re big, beautiful hairy relatives,” he said.

“I started out because I like to watch animals; that’s the fun part,” he said.

“Then, you have to worry about livelihood of communities” encroaching on the habitats.”

At 14, after World War II, he came to the U.S. from Berlin with his American mother, and retains a slight German accent. His first field trip was to the Arctic slope in Alaska.

“The oil companies wanted to drill. Luckily, they didn’t,” he said. As of 2006, “the place is still beautiful .. . no roads, lots of caribou and grizzly bears.”

He and his wife, Kay, “the perfect co-worker,” raised two sons in exotic locales. She still accompanies him on some trips.

“The most wonderful place is Serengeti and Tanzania,” he said. “You literally see a million animals spread before you.”

He writes even more than he travels. Schaller has penned seven books and scores of articles with titles like, “Courtship Behavior of the Wild Goat,” and “Effects of a Snowstorm on Tibetan Antelope.”

On Thursday, Schaller will preside at a symposium at Rockefeller University on Manhattan‘s East Side.

It’s a commemoration of his years with the WCS, celebrating his contribution to science. A panel of international conservationists will examine the status of key species and landscapes that Schaller has brought to the world’s attention.

Is he excited about the symposium? He looked a little uncomfortable, and said, “Why do you think I am always overseas?”

Schaller is passionate, though, about his prized project, first conceived in the 1980s.

He envisions the Pamir International Peace Park, at the nexus of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and Tajikistan. It will be a refuge for Marco Polo sheep.

“We had a meeting of all four countries,” he said.

He has never let war, strife, the political squabbles of humans or borders stop him.

As he wrote in one of his books, “I live in a geography of dreams. …”

poshaughnessy@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/02/23/2009-02-23_a_force_for_endangered_species-1.html

KaraFilm festival: Informative, thought-provoking films mark third day

Saturday, February 07, 2009
By our correspondent
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=161144


Karachi

The third day of the Kara Film Festival saw a flurry of activity with a screening of 11 films, seven short ones, two documentaries, and two feature films.

Within the short films section was the 48-minute local film, “Gurmukh Singh ki Wasiyat” (Gurmukh Sigh’s Will). Based on a short story by Saadat Hasan Minto, written and directed by Sharjeel Baloch, the story is set in Amritsar during Partition, and depicts the accompanying riots.

The film is centred around the family of a retired Muslim judge, Mian Saheb. Muslim families of the area migrate to Pakistan or leave to seek refuge, and Mian Saheb has great trust in his dear friend, Gurmukh Singh, a revered area elder.

While Gurmukh Singh’s son honours his father’s will to bring sweet vermicelli on Eid to the Muslim household, he remains powerless to prevent his peers from burning and looting.

Afterwards, Sharjeel thanked his crew and the actors who put in a lot of effort, shooting the film within five days at Kotri. He was thankful to the people of Kotri who welcomed the crew warmly in to their homes, many of which last from the pre-Partition era, thus giving an air of authenticity to the scenes and bringing alive the past.

The second documentary, a BBC production for their Planet Earth series, was about snow leopards in Chitral, NWFP. The unique aspect of this production is the visual documentation of the behaviour of the snow leopards on the steep mountains. Narrated by renowned wildlife documentary maker, Sir David Attenborough, the celestial beauty of snow-decked valleys, and the engaging delivery of Sir Attenborough drew the audience’s rapt attention.

Nisar Malik, veteran journalist and filmmaker, who was commissioned to seek out and film the rare beast, was also present at Friday’s screening. He said that within four years of shooting, they saw only four snow leopards.

Responding to a question about whether the documentary might further endanger the animal for hunters and poachers, Malik said that during their four years, they exposed numerous instances of trophy poaching and illegal hunting in the land of the Markhor. The authorities, however, turned a blind eye, he said.

Unfortunately, the only way Pakistanis will be able to see the documentary is either on BBC or on the Indian Discovery channel in Hindi, as none of the channels in Pakistan was willing to screen it, not even PTV.