Livestock Insurance: A Game Changer for People and Animals

Livestock kills by snow leopards are a part of everyday life for many herder communities in Asia's mountains. The financial impact on these families can be devastating, and retaliation against the cat is commonplace. But the Snow Leopard Trust's innovative, community-run livestock insurance program is breaking this vicious cycle.

The Snow Leopard Trust’s community-run livestock insurance program helps herder communities build a sustainable compensation mechanism to offset the cost of livestock kills by snow leopards. It makes a huge difference for these families and eliminates one of the major drivers of retaliation killings. Filmmakers Gayle Podrabsky and Joe Pontecorvo traveled to Ladakh, India, to see this innovative conservation program in action and tell its unique story. Don’t miss their documentary!

4 Comments

  1. That’s heartening news. Hopefully this compensation program will help alleviate the possibility of beautiful Snow Leopards going extinct.

  2. This looks like a wonderful program and way to minimise Human Wildlife Conflict. While it is sad to see/read about any retaliation as a result of livestock killed by a Predator, it is understandable to a large degree when a family suffers a loss and what that can men to the families future. I do a lot to support similar issues between the Maasia who herd livestock if Africa. They also put their livestock into an enclosure called a Boma or Krall overnight. It is during the nightime when most attacks take place. Despite being in an enclosure a hungry predator will often force a way into the enclosure. With the same result as these people suffering the loss of one or more of their livestock. No doubt they also have some of their livestock which are not killed but badly injured and die as a result of infections. The project I support raises funding to buy Solar Powered LED Flashing Lights. These are placed about 10 paces apart around the enclosure facing outwards. Any predators approaching the enclosure is disturbed by the lights flashing. It is thought they suspect there are many humans about and this makes them fear trying to get into the enclosure due to the perception of possible attacks by “those non existent humans”. Wherever these lights have been deployed in Tanzania it has stopped the predators from attacking the livestock. Where was Human Wlidlife Conflict it has ceased to happen. This is a link to that Project showing what they do. http://www.tanzlight.org/what-we-do.html

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