Partnerships with communities living in snow leopard habitat are key to our conservation efforts and this year our partners in Mongolia are facing unprecedented challenges due to the harshest winter in decades. Over the winter herders in Mongolia lost more than 8.14 million livestock according the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and light Industry. That is 18.5 percent of the total livestock in the country and the worst loss of livestock since records have been kept.
Thanks to our generous donors, led by Stephen Sparrow of the Snow Leopard Vodka company, we were able to provide immediate aid this spring to those hardest hit. Mr. Sparrow was able to visit Mongolia recently and met with herders in the area as well as visited our long-term study site where he was lucky enough to see Aztai who was patrolling his territory near the base camp:
“Visiting the Tost valley in the South Gobi was a real thrill for me. The local herder families I met were so warm and friendly and whilst they live in some of the harshest terrain on the planet their kindness to their neighbours and visitors (like me!) was quite extraordinary. The work Bayara’s team is doing through the snow leopard enterprise and livestock insurance projects is really putting snow leopard conservation at the heart of the South Gobi nomadic communities. It was wonderful to hear from one of the herders who had lost livestock in the high mountains in the winter to undoubtedly a snow leopard attack that there was no way he would now resort to a retribution killing. He was proud to share his home with one of the world’s most beautiful animals and proud that people from so far away took an interest in the snow leopard and the people who shared their habitat.
For me the whole trip was quite humbling. The science based research work that Orjan and Koustubh are leading with the long term research project will be so crucial to build compelling support for snow leopard conservation from local governments and NGO’s and the wider general public. The life blood of the Snow Leopard’s future has to undoubtedly rely on the local herder communities who share their habitat. The amazing work that Bayara and her team do with these truly delightful people is so crucial for the species’ survival and a cause I personally will make a life long commitment to support.”