Shortlisted for the Georgina Mace Prize

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About the research

Overview

Jammu and Kashmir has been an extremely understudied area, especially its high elevation. Over 2 years of political instability has made this task even more challenging. In this paper, we wanted to first understand where snow leopards are found in Jammu and Kashmir. Following this large-scale survey, we then wanted to understand the status and conservation opportunities for snow leopards in a multi-use landscape, Paddar. Through our study we wanted to provide the first integrated assessment of snow leopard occurrence across J&K, and density and land use in Paddar, forming the base for conservation planning outside formally protected areas.

Surprises and challenges

Snow leopards and people use the same areas in such nuanced ways! Even though they may not share the same space at exactly the same time, the valleys were we find the most snow leopards are used by various people in various ways – livestock grazing, religious pilgrimages, medicinal plant collection to state a few. Erratic weather, navigating difficult permit  landscape given the political tensions in the region, remote and rugged terrain were some of the challenges we faced.  

Next steps and broader implications

To now use the learnings from this paper, to work with multi-stakeholders (eg government and the local community), to build community-lead snow leopard conservation reserves in the region. Ones that centre snow leopard conservation alongside, and not without, people. Exciting developments have already begun towards this!

That we need to have multi-sources of information, methods and disciplines when gaining insights into conservation planning for species and spaces. Furthermore, for long ranging species like snow leopards it is critical that landscape-level conservation strategies are needed, rather than relying solely on Protected Areas; this is infact in line with the ethos of the CBD and 30×30 objectives we have set ourselves globally.

About the author

Current position

I work as a scientist at a grassroot NGO in India called Nature Conservation Foundation and also a post-doc at ICTA-UAB in Spain.

Getting involved in ecology

Through hikes with my parents in a homeland that I had to leave for large parts of my childhood (J&K) due to political conflict. 

Is the research ongoing?

Absolutely! We are committed to long-term research and conservation engagement in these landscapes.

Advice for fellow ecologists

Be humble, honest and committed.

Read the full article Finding the ghosts: Snow leopard density and distribution in the multi-use region of Jammu and Kashmir, India in Ecological Solutions and Evidence.