towards project snow leopard - Nature Conservation Foundation

Towards Project Snow Leopard • 73
2.4. Strengthening long-term and short-term patrols for both inside and outside PAs: The state has
an effective system of both long-term and short-term patrolling. This mechanism keeps
the staff informed about the activities in their area, as also are effective wildlife monitoring
methods.
2.5. Awareness programmes: Programmes that spread conservation education and awareness
across the entire cross-section of the administration and civil society need to be developed.
These need to target citizens, policy makers, rural and urban schools, army, judiciary,
industry, media, tourism and other stakeholders.
2.6. Professional capacity-building for staff, including visits to other snow leopard areas: Capacity
development of the staff in scientific skills such as management planning, wildlife
monitoring and participatory approaches is extremely important to keep them well
informed and capable. PSL should facilitate periodic training of staff, including study
tours to other conservation areas in India and abroad.
2.7. Need for a tourism management plan: Tourism is unplanned in many areas and may cause
irreparable damage to the ecosystem. While it remains an important tool to enhance local
incomes, it strongly needs a guiding policy that gives guidelines for especially PAs and ecosensitive
areas.
2.8. Need for implementation of timely compensation mechanisms, crop damage compensation in
high altitudes: Insufficient and difficult-to-obtain compensation programmes often alienate
the victims of wildlife related losses even further. There is an urgent need to streamline
these activities to include programmes that first reduce wildlife depredations (through
better corrals, fencing, better herding) and then provisioning of a higher and timely
compensation package for any damage that still occurs. Innovative programmes such as
locally managed livestock insurance can work in many places.
2.9. Strategy to understand and control potential disease transfers (livestock-wildlife): As many
areas in the region are predominantly pastoral landscapes, there is a great chance for
disease transfers between livestock and wildlife. There is an urgent need to understand
these mechanisms and ways in which it can be controlled.
2.10. Incentives to communities; involvement in conservation efforts: For effective conservation,
income generation programmes are extremely important that can help reduce peoples’
dependence on the natural resources. Community based ecotourism can augment local
incomes while also strengthening local participation in conservation. This should be done
through a proper eco-tourism policy and management plans, both at macro and micro
levels. Additionally, members of the local communities can also be trained and involved in
systematic data collection on local biodiversity.
2.11. All forest officers to be trained in wildlife management: There are some forest officers in the
state who have undergone special training for wildlife management. As all of them may
not always be posted in wildlife PAs and as it is recognized that numerous areas outside