A study pub­lished last week in Con­ser­va­tion Biol­ogy con­firms the crit­i­cal role of Tibetan Bud­dhist monas­ter­ies in the fight to con­serve the endan­gered snow leopard.

Led by Dr. Li Juan, Snow Leop­ard Trust staff mem­ber doing post­doc­toral research at Peking Uni­ver­sity, the study con­firms that over 300 monas­ter­ies inhabit the same sky-​high region as the snow leop­ards of the Tibetan Plateau, and pro­tect more snow leop­ard habi­tat than local nature reserves. The study, Role of Tibetan Bud­dhist Monas­ter­ies in Snow Leop­ard Con­ser­va­tion, was coau­thored by Panthera’s Dr. George Schaller and Dr. Tom McCarthy, the lead­ing Chi­nese Shan Shui Con­ser­va­tion Cen­tre and the Snow Leop­ard Trust. It showed that nearly half of the monas­ter­ies are found in snow leop­ard habi­tat, while 90% exist within 5 km of snow leop­ard range in the Plateau’s San­jiangyuan region.

Monks on the Tibetan Plateau serve as de facto wildlife guardians. Tibetan Bud­dhism con­sid­ers the snow leop­ard and its habi­tats strictly sacred, and the monks patrol wild land­scapes sur­round­ing monas­ter­ies to enforce strict edicts against killing wildlife. Senior monks, includ­ing the Rin­poche and Khen­pos, are impor­tant influ­encers in their com­mu­ni­ties, pos­i­tively impact­ing fol­low­ers’ atti­tudes and behav­iour towards wildlife. The study shows that Tibetan Bud­dhism is prac­ticed across an extra­or­di­nary 80% of snow leop­ard range, and so monastery-​based snow leop­ard con­ser­va­tion could apply over a much broader area than the Tibetan Plateau.

Panthera’s Vice Pres­i­dent, Dr. George Schaller, explained, “Bud­dhism has as a basic tenet the love, respect, and com­pas­sion for all liv­ing beings. This report illu­mi­nates how sci­ence and the spir­i­tual val­ues of Tibetan Bud­dhism can com­bine their visions and wis­dom to help pro­tect China’s nat­ural her­itage. Such an approach to envi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion needs to be emu­lated by all the world’s faiths.”

He shared, “There is evi­dence that tra­di­tional cul­ture and social insti­tu­tions may play a crit­i­cal role in chang­ing people’s mind and behav­iour. With Bud­dhist edu­ca­tion, Tibetan peo­ple have lived in har­mony with nature for thou­sands of years. Now like every­where else, the tra­di­tional cul­ture on the Plateau is fac­ing the chal­lenge of mod­erni­sa­tion. Con­ser­va­tion­ists should work closer with social insti­tu­tions, inte­grat­ing sci­en­tific method­olo­gies with cul­tural approaches for bet­ter solutions.”

Between 3,500 – 7,000 snow leop­ards cur­rently remain in 12 Asian coun­tries, with an esti­mated 60% of their pop­u­la­tion and habi­tat occur­ring in China. Pan­thera, Shan Shui and the Snow Leop­ard Trust have been part­ner­ing with four Tibetan Bud­dhist monas­ter­ies in the Yushu Pre­fec­ture of Qing­hai Province since 2009. The pro­gram focuses on mit­i­gat­ing human-​snow leop­ard con­flict and train­ing monks to mon­i­tor and pro­tect wildlife. It also sup­ports monas­ter­ies in teach­ing tens of thou­sands of peo­ple about the con­ser­va­tion value of snow leop­ards through fes­ti­vals and edu­ca­tional pro­grams. In three years there have been no reports of snow leop­ards being killed in the study area.

Watch the stun­ning footage of snow leop­ards play­ing in the snow while Snow Leop­ard trust Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Brad Ruther­ford nar­rates how they work with the peo­ple shar­ing snow leop­ard habi­tat to pro­tect this endan­gered species:

Panthera’s Snow Leop­ard Pro­gram Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Dr. Tom McCarthy, explained, “Snow leop­ards share their moun­tain habi­tat with poor herd­ing fam­i­lies whose lives are depen­dent on live­stock. When a snow leop­ard kills a sheep, goat, yak or even a young camel, it is a huge eco­nomic loss to the herder. Thanks to this unique pro­gram, we now have highly-​respected com­mu­nity lead­ers mit­i­gat­ing con­flict and act­ing as spokes­peo­ple for snow leop­ards by weav­ing the mes­sage of con­ser­va­tion with their reli­gious con­vic­tions, and paving the road for the snow leopard’s future on the Tibetan Plateau and beyond.”

The research team believes that this model — col­lab­o­ra­tion of con­ser­va­tion­ists with bud­dhist monas­ter­ies — could also con­tribute to snow leop­ard con­ser­va­tion in other areas where there is a strong influ­ence of Tibetan Bud­dhism, such as North­ern India, Nepal, Bhutan and parts of Mongolia.

The research is sup­ported by Snow Leop­ard Trust, Shan Shui Con­ser­va­tion Cen­ter, Peking Uni­ver­sity and Panthera.

(Source: Pan­thera press release, 05.09.2013; Wiley press release, 02.09.2013; Snow Leop­ard Tracks — the newslet­ter of Snow Leop­ard Trust, Fall 2013)