HWC Ten Years Later: Successes and Shortcomings of Approaches to Global Snow Leopard Conservation

Abstract

Over the past decade important advances have been made toward addressing human–wildlife conflict associated with the endangered snow leopard (Panthera uncia). Engaging and motivating stakeholders through more participatory protocols remains a vital ingredient toward the design, implementation, and of monitoring robust, long-lasting, and locally adapted solutions that stress the community’s collective and positive visions for the change. Co-existence with this predator can be best achieved by empowering rural communities and helping them forge more harmonious and eco-centric relationships with their environment, one in which snow leopards are perceived as valued assets rather than pests to be eliminated. The Global Snow Leopard Environmental Plan endorsed in 2013 by all 12 snow leopard range countries offers a possible blueprint for this transformational process to take place. The major challenge rests with securing the necessary financing and the scaling up of remedial interventions to landscape levels across the range states.