towards project snow leopard - Nature Conservation Foundation

80 • Appendix 1
continuing and there are few or no differences in land-use within and outside PAs.
3. Alternate/Better Strategy: Conservation and Management Philosophy
3.1. Conservation and management philosophy
3.1.1. Need to involve communities: Given the widespread occurrence of wildlife on
common land, and the continued traditional land-use within protected areas, it
is imperative that wildlife conservation efforts be made participatory both within
and outside protected areas. Such a participatory approach will be facilitated by the
relatively intact and functional traditional administrative bodies such as the village
councils in most of the high altitude landscape. The success of recent experiments in
participatory conservation underscores the desirability and feasibility of participatory
wildlife management in the Indian high altitudes.
3.1.2. Need to provide economic and other incentives to local communities -- devising ways
of making conservation pay: There are often untapped opportunities in biodiversityrich
areas to generate local interest and support for conservation through income
generation. This can be done by harnessing local resources through community-based
tourism and cultivation of medicinal plants. In addition, incentive programmes can
be instituted that alleviate losses due to depredation.
3.1.3. Need to couple local participation with effective enforcement: As mentioned in 3.1
above, a participatory approach is essential, but it needs to be coupled with a strong
enforcement.
3.1.4. Gender balance and the role of women in conservation efforts: The village communities’
role as decision makers and beneficiaries of conservation efforts is acknowledged. In
many parts of the range there is a gender imbalance whereby women are kept away
from most village or Panchayat level decision making. PSL needs to facilitate a greater
role for women in biodiversity conservation.
3.2. On-ground management
3.2.1. Need for zonation of the entire landscape, including PAs: It is impractical to have large
National Parks with no zonation, where essentially the entire area is considered as a
‘core zone’. PAs should be zoned according to values in smaller pockets not necessarily
as large cores, but a mosaic of smaller, manageable cores, spread in an area with
tempered human use. Other areas for incentive programmes such as communitybased
tourism need to be established. Areas outside existing PA network should
be reviewed and areas with significant endangered wildlife populations need to be
protected by small cores. The smaller cores should act as ‘source’ populations for
sustaining populations of endangered species outside.
3.2.2. Need to rationalize PAs: Some PAs may have too large an area to be viable. There is a