The Question My Father Could Not Answer
More than twenty years ago, when I began working with herding communities in Mongolia’s snow leopard landscapes, I arrived with enthusiasm, ideas, and conservation goals. We wanted to reduce threats to snow leopards, protect their habitat, and work with communities to develop approaches that could last.
Long before I began working with herding communities on conservation and coexistence, I had seen the tension between protecting snow leopards and addressing the risks faced by the families who shared the landscape with them. My father was a park manager in the Gobi Desert for 20 years, and snow leopards lived in the region.
As a teenager, I watched herders come to our home after a snow leopard had taken livestock. They were frightened, angry, and sometimes wanted to kill the cat. I loved wildlife, but I also understood why a family that had lost livestock would sleep uneasily, knowing it could happen again.
My father could tell people that the snow leopard was endangered and could not be killed, but he had no practical solution to offer them. I kept thinking there must be a way for people and snow leopards to live together. I carried both sides of those conversations with me when I began this work.
Why Quick Solutions Were Not Enough
When I joined the Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation, the Snow Leopard Trust’s partner organization in Mongolia, we organized meetings, shared information, and introduced ideas. Some communities responded with interest. Other meetings ended in silence, and some conversations took years to move forward.
At first, we hoped to see change quickly. Over time, we came to understand why people were cautious. Many communities had seen outside organizations arrive with top-down solutions ill-adapted to local realities, run short projects, and leave. Trust could not be established through one meeting or workshop.
When I was younger, I thought the right intervention might solve the problem completely. Perhaps we could build a corral, compensate a loss, or provide something else that would remove the conflict. Gradually, I learned that these measures can help, but no single item solves the problem on its own.
We could not approach communities simply as a donor providing free things. We needed to work as friends, colleagues, and equals. We could contribute what we were able to offer, while community members contributed their knowledge, decisions, work, and leadership. That mutual relationship became the foundation of trust.
One difficult visit in Tost showed me how wide the gap could be. Some people believed that the drug used to temporarily immobilize snow leopards for collaring changed the animals’ behavior. They thought it made the cats bolder and harder to scare away, and might eventually attack a person.
An older man accused us of raising predators and making money from them. I tried to explain that we were not raising snow leopards. We were working to keep his homeland intact by conserving the whole mountain landscape, including its pasture, water, small mammals, and other wildlife. He remained angry and wanted me to leave Tost. I returned to camp and could not sleep that night. All night I thought about how to better help herders like him, and how our work protects not just snow leopards but also his family’s livelihood.
What Changed When We Kept Returning
We continued returning year after year. We shared tea, listened to concerns, joined local discussions, and looked for ways to respond to the priorities communities raised. We began to understand hesitation as caution rather than rejection. Communities needed time to decide whether we would remain present and whether the relationship would be useful to them.
Years later, in 2015, I organized a focus group discussion with ten elders in Tost as part of my PhD research on climate change. The same man who had scolded me came to the meeting. I did not expect him to attend, but he tried to help with the discussion. We eventually became friends.
I cannot point to a single argument that changed his view. What mattered was that neither of us treated the first confrontation as the end of the relationship. He had the opportunity to return on his own terms, and I had the opportunity to see him as more than the man who had once been defensive.
When Communities Proposed Their Own Solutions
Many early conversations focused on livestock losses to wild carnivores and the challenges families faced while sharing the landscape with snow leopards. These were immediate concerns tied to household livelihoods. As the relationships developed, discussions expanded to wildlife, land stewardship, community governance, and what conservation could contribute to future generations.
Community members began bringing forward their own ideas and aspirations. They increasingly shaped the direction of the work, while our role shifted toward facilitation, supporting communities as they took greater ownership of local conservation efforts.
Several initiatives that later became central to our conservation approach grew through this process. Community Responsible Areas, community rangers, and local conservation leadership created greater roles for communities in decisions about land and wildlife. Snow Leopard Enterprises and community-based livestock insurance connected conservation with household livelihoods and the economic costs families can face when livestock are lost. These programs developed through years of dialogue, shared experience, and adjustment.
The livestock insurance program grew out of a difficult meeting in Tost around 2008 or 2009. After a herder killed a collared snow leopard, community members argued that he had been protecting himself. They asked who would be responsible if a snow leopard killed a person.
Bayara Agvaantseren, the Snow Leopard Trust’s Mongolia Program Manager, asked what would help prevent future killings. A community member said people would not harm snow leopards if they were compensated for livestock losses. Bayara suggested adapting an insurance program used in India. This led to the livestock insurance program in Tost, and the community member became one of its leaders.
In western Mongolia, women already participating in a handicraft program proposed a separate dairy initiative. They produced cheese and other dairy products each summer and wanted help improving and selling them. With support from a United Nations small grant, they received training in health, hygiene, and production, as well as packaging and access to larger markets, including an annual exhibition in Ulaanbaatar.
The PARTNERS Principles in Practice
The same field experience eventually informed what we now call the PARTNERS Principles. We formalized the principles after years of working alongside communities, local governments, and other partners. The first principle, Presence, reflects one of our earliest lessons. We had to continue showing up, listening, and allowing relationships to develop at their own pace.
The other principles grew from the same experience. Successful partnerships depended on respect, transparency, negotiation, empathy, responsiveness, and support suited to local priorities. Communities had been teaching us these lessons long before we gave them a formal name.
One herder showed us why transparency matters. A climate change project was helping communities build greenhouses, and he asked what greenhouses had to do with climate change. We explained that a greenhouse could provide another source of food or income when severe weather caused livestock losses. His question reminded us that we needed to explain the goal, not just the activity.
For the same reason, we discuss how a corral will be used before supporting one. Otherwise, it may be seen simply as free equipment or extra yard space rather than a way to protect livestock.
Projects must also fit local conditions. In southern Mongolia, herders often shelter livestock near rocks and cliffs, where snow leopards can reach them more easily. A protective corral can help, but it must be placed away from the cliff. In western and northern Mongolia, many herders already use corrals, so strengthening an existing structure may be more useful than building a new one. We cannot use the same approach everywhere.
From Criticism to Community Leadership
Over the years, some communities that had initially shown little interest in conservation became advocates for snow leopard protection. People who had once been skeptical became community leaders, rangers, and conservation champions. Relationships that began with informal conversations developed into long-term collaborations that continue today.
In Khovd Province, some people asked why we protected carnivores when predators threatened their livestock. The Mongolian translation of our name also made it sound as though we cared only about snow leopards. I explained that our work was meant to protect the whole mountain landscape, including the people and wildlife that depend on it.
One man in western Mongolia initially strongly criticized our work. Over time, he became involved and now monitors a Community Responsible Area as a community volunteer ranger.
Why Long-Term Partnership Matters
These changes did not happen according to a fixed schedule. They grew as communities gained confidence that their concerns would be heard and that they would have a meaningful role in decisions affecting their land, livelihoods, and future.
Today, as we continue working across Mongolia’s snow leopard landscapes, we still return to the lessons of those early years. We do not expect every conversation to produce an immediate result, and we do not assume that trust can be accelerated. We remain present, listen, and give partnerships the time they require.
Short funding cycles continue to place pressure on conservation organizations to demonstrate rapid progress. More than twenty years of work in Mongolia have taught us that lasting change takes time. The programs and partnerships that continue today grew from that sustained commitment. Protecting snow leopards and their landscapes depends on relationships strong enough to continue through changing circumstances, setbacks, and new challenges.
Explore Partners Principles for ethical community-centric conservation
About the author: Dr. Tserennadmid (Nadia) Mijiddorj is the Conservation Director at the Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation in Mongolia.
Photo Credits: SLCF – Mongolia
Acknowledgements:
We are grateful to everyone who has supported our conservation work in Mongolia and the development of the PARTNERS Principles. We also thank all of our supporters, whose generosity makes this work possible.
The PARTNERS Principles were developed by Charudutt Mishra, drawing on the work and contributions of colleagues across Snow Leopard Trust and its range-country partners, including the Nature Conservation Foundation, Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation, Snow Leopard Foundation, Quaid-i-Azam University, Shanshui, and other conservation researchers and practitioners. The original idea was contributed by Fred Nelson of the Acacia Conservation Fund.
Nadia’s Research:
Research Profile & Publications
Gobi Herders’ Decision-Making and Risk Management under Changing Climate