2006-7 annual report - Nature Conservation Foundation

Project Snow Leopard
Over the last four years, NCF has been working with the
governments of Himalayan states to formulate a conservation
strategy and action plan called ‘Project Snow
Leopard.’ This project, led by Yash Veer Bhatnagar,
made significant progress during the last year.
In July 2006, we conducted a national workshop on
Project Snow Leopard in collaboration with the Jammu
and Kashmir Department of Wildlife Conservation,
which saw the participation of the Central and all five
Himalayan State Governments, as well as various research
and conservation institutions, and was chaired
by the Union Minister of Environment and Forests of the
Government of India. A report was immediately completed
and published, and appropriate efforts ensured
that the Central Government designated a committee
for drafting the document that also included NCF. We
have subsequently drafted the national Strategy and Action
Plan document, which is about to be finalized with
inputs from the MoEF’s Drafting Committee. During the
year, we also drafted proposals on behalf of the Central
government for Project Snow Leopard to be included
for funding for the ongoing 11th 5 year plan of India’s
Planning Commission, as well as for possible funding by
the GEF.
We are now hopeful that our several years of effort
to catalyse an appropriate conservation policy for
the higher Himalaya will finally result in the initiation
of Project Snow Leopard from 1 April 2008 (the new
fiscal year). The Central Ministry of Environment and
Forests has in principle agreed to the contents of the
Strategy and Action Plan we have drafted (which is for
a knowledge based and participatory conservation programme
that fully involves local Himalayan communities
in conservation efforts), and also agreed for a special
allocation of 3% of its total budget for Project Snow
Leopard.
Village reserves
Under its efforts to promote community based conservation,
NCF has been working closely with the villages
of Kibber and Chichim in Spiti to protect two areas as
‘village reserves’ since 1999’. Led by Charudutt Mishra,
these reserves continued to be protected and the recovery
of wildlife populations was monitored.
Community-based conservation efforts are important
in areas where multiple use of natural resources, by
humans and wildlife, is unavoidable. In a pioneering
experiment, started seven years ago, NCF established a
village reserve in collaboration with the village council
of Kibber, Spiti. All grazing by livestock was curtailed
and the villagers were compensated for the lost grazing.
The recovery of wildlife has constantly been monitored.
Encouraged by the results, this reserve has subsequently
been expanded to include adjoining areas,
and a second reserve has been established in the neighbouring
village of Chichim. The two village reserves totalling
c. 20 km2 continued to be protected.
The larger village reserve continues to serve
as habitat for one of the highest density wild ungulate
(bharal) populations in the region. The areas are seeing
high use by the snow leopard and at least three individual
snow leopards have been repeatedly seen around
the reserve. Our efforts have led to complete curtailment
of the risk of retaliatory killing of wild carnivores
from the region.
We continued data collection on trends in livestock
and wild prey populations and extent of livestock
depredation as part of our monitoring programme.
annual
report
7