Wildlife Heritage Foundation

WHF partners with the Snow Leopard Trust

As Wildlife Heritage Foundation grows as an organisation we will build partnerships with organisations that undertake research and protection of the species of cats that we work with in our breeding centre. These partnerships have to be mutually beneficial; they have to provide positive benefits to the wild cat populations and importantly work with the local human populations who are the real guardians of the future of any species.

The Snow Leopard Trust's Natural Partnerships Program offers zoos far from snow leopard habitat a convenient and effective way to contribute to conservation of the cats. WHF is a "Zoo Contributor" within this program.

An American not for profit organisation founded in 1981, the Snow Leopard Trust is the largest and oldest organization working solely to protect the endangered snow leopard and its Central Asian habitat.

How do you save a snow leopard?

Or a tiger, rhino, rare butterfly, or for that matter a patch of rainforest? These are the questions that every conservation organisation faces, and that challenges all of us. Conservation actions can take many forms; setting aside lands, answering critical research questions, working to change government policies, partnering with communities, enforcing anti-poaching laws, or some mix of these and other efforts.

The Snow Leopard Trust uses a combination of approaches that focus on partnering with communities in snow leopard habitat. But as they build community partnerships they use science and research to determine key snow leopard habitat, assess wildlife-human conflict levels, and identify potential resources for conservation programs. Once they have this information they can prioritise the areas where they will work. High priority areas include key snow leopard habitat, with a history of conflict between predators and the communities, and potential resources to sustain a community-based conservation program.

When the science and research identifies an area as a priority site SLT spend a lot of time with local residents, listening to their hopes and concerns, and only then do they take the step of jointly developing a conservation program.

The conservation effort must meet four important goals.

1. The protection of snow leopards and their habitat, involving local communities in this effort.
2. An improved quality of life for the members of the community.
3. The program developed must have a path to becoming self-sufficient ? where after a time it is no longer dependent on finance from external donors.
4. The results of the program must be verifiable through monitoring programs.

In all the reports on the Snow Leopard Trust's community-based conservation efforts you will read about the different projects that they are implementing with their community partners. While the projects differ in response to the local needs and conditions, the underlying principles of each of the programs remain the same. SLT will constantly endeavour to improve their conservation projects to better meet the needs of cats and humans, and we are seeing wonderful results at their project sites where the livelihoods of families and communities have improved greatly and snow leopards are being protected.

For further details of the work of the Snow Leopard trust please visit www.snowleopard.org