Snow Leopard Survival Strategy - Panthera

Income Generation
Wildlife-based Ecotourism
Establishing wildlife-based tourism that provides
jobs and financial benefits to local people will add economic
value to wildlife and create incentives to protect
the resource.
Research required prior to taking actions:
• Identify target communities where tourism may alleviate
a conservation issue, and where the community
has indicated a willingness to initiate a program (using
PRA or APPA)
• Identify potential physical attractions: sites, views,
locations, cultural events (festivals, etc. in particular
ones connected to the snow leopard)
• Identify wildlife attractions and determine chances of
satisfying wildlife oriented tourists
• Conduct market research to determine demand and
identify target market
• Conduct a feasibility study to assess infrastructure:
access; transport; lodging etc.
• Conduct socio-economic assessment of target community
to enable positive impact monitoring
• Conduct biological baseline survey to enable negative
impact monitoring
Action
Guidelines
Policy level
Community level
Steps:
• Review country tourism policy
• Educate decision makers about potential
benefits of ecotourism
• Integrate tourism development with
any national or international campaigns
such as Year of Tourism, or
Year of the Mountain, etc.
• Leverage any available government or
multi-lateral aid funding for tourism
development
• Determine stakeholder groups, including local
community representatives
• Assess capacity of local community to provide
guest service, wildlife guiding, etc, build on that to
make it better
• Determine training needs and sources of training
• In collaboration with all stakeholders develop wildlife-tourism
Plan with transparent distribution of
financial benefits
• Identify specific actions to be taken to benefit wildlife,
such as establishment of conservation fund,
grazing set asides, etc.
• Develop monitoring protocols and success indicators
with community input
• Develop wildlife-tourism marketing strategy
Stakeholders:
• Local, regional, national governments
• NGO’s
• Local communities
• Tour operators and travel agencies
• Transportation agencies
• NGO’s, Community Based Organizations (CBO’s)
Potential
Pitfalls:
• Snow leopards inhabit remote, inaccessible areas with unpredictable weather and a short season,
tourist health and wellbeing should be carefully considered
• Political instability and health issues are a concern in many parts of snow leopard range and the
tourist market is easily impacted by negative media image
• Relatively low abundance of wildlife (compared to popular viewing destinations such as east
Africa) and extreme unlikelihood of seeing snow leopard
• Market saturation; all of snow leopard range can not be made a tourist destination
• The financial benefits of tourism may not be equitably distributed leading to resentment and of
lack of commitment to the conservation goals
• May expose otherwise remote snow leopard area to international poachers
34 | SNOW LEOPARD SURVIVAL STRATEGY