Snow leopards or solar parks? Reconciling wildlife conservation and green energy development in the high Himalaya

Abstract

Harnessing green energy from sources like the sun is important to meet increasing global energy demands while reducing dependence on fossil fuel and mitigating climate change. However, the potential negative effects of green energy, especially concerning local biodiversity, are frequently overlooked. We use a case study from Trans-Himalayan India to discuss how green energy development, in our case proposed large-scale solar parks containing 13 solar sites, can be reconciled with wildlife conservation. We use detection-non-detection data for snow leopards with bioclimatic covariates using single-season single-species occupancy model to build a habitat suitability model. We prioritise development scenarios, to ensure the aim of snow leopard conservation, by operationalizing the step-wise (avoid>minimise>remediate>offset) Mitigation Hierarchy (MH). All of the 13 proposed solar plant sites fall within areas of high snow leopard suitability (>0.5). Applying the sequential MH framework, to “avoid” any impact would require either complete halt of all construction of the solar parks, or identifying alternative sites where the suitability for snow leopards is lower. However, collaborative planning is needed to fully implement this framework such that both objectives - solar energy generation and snow leopard conservation - can be optimally decided. We acknowledge that such decisions need integration of local people's perspective, which needs further elucidation. We advocate for a nuanced, data-driven, approach to reconcile conservation aims with development.