Welcome

Later this month, on 22 Octo­ber, high-​level gov­ern­ment del­e­ga­tions from all 12 snow leop­ard range coun­tries will get together in Bishkek, Kyr­gyz Repub­lic, for the Global Snow Leop­ard Con­ser­va­tion Forum — a his­toric oppor­tu­nity to save these endan­gered big cats!

The meet­ing promises to go down in his­tory as a land­mark date for snow leop­ards. On this day, heads of del­e­ga­tions from all 12 snow leop­ard range coun­tries are expected to sign the Bishkek Dec­la­ra­tion on the Con­ser­va­tion of Snow Leop­ards — an unprece­dented com­mit­ment to ensur­ing a safe future for the endan­gered feline species!

The Global Snow Leop­ard Con­ser­va­tion Forum’s goal is for all the range coun­tries to sign a dec­la­ra­tion com­mit­ting to spe­cific actions to ensure the sur­vival of the endan­gered snow leop­ard, to sup­port a com­pre­hen­sive and uni­fy­ing range-​wide snow leop­ard con­ser­va­tion pro­gramme for Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Kaza­khstan, Kyr­gyz Repub­lic, Mon­go­lia, Nepal, Pak­istan, Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, Tajik­istan, and Uzbek­istan, and to mobilise much needed funds to carry-​out the con­ser­va­tion plans that will be established.

The Global Snow Leop­ard Forum is the result of an ini­tia­tive by the Pres­i­dent of the Kyr­gyz Repub­lic, Mr. Almazbek Atam­baev. Mod­el­ling this event on the suc­cess­ful Inter­na­tional Tiger Forum hosted in 2010 in St. Peters­burg, Pres­i­dent Atam­baev is draw­ing on the expe­ri­ence of the Global Tiger Ini­tia­tive, which is housed within the aus­pices of the World Bank. The Bank has encour­aged the active involve­ment of the snow leop­ard con­ser­va­tion com­mu­nity includ­ing many lead­ing NGOs and the Snow Leop­ard Net­work. As the pre­em­i­nent con­ser­va­tion organ­i­sa­tion solely focused on sav­ing the crit­i­cally endan­gered snow leop­ard, the Snow Leop­ard Trust is the Bank’s key tech­ni­cal part­ner in this ini­tia­tive, play­ing a crit­i­cal role in plan­ning, organ­is­ing, and facil­i­tat­ing the Global Forum.

Snow leop­ards face real threats in the wild. Poach­ers hunt the snow leop­ard for its fur and bones, and impov­er­ished herd­ing com­mu­ni­ties retal­i­ate against the cat to pro­tect their live­stock. But there is real hope. At Snow Leop­ard Trust, we part­ner with the peo­ple shar­ing snow leop­ard habi­tat to cre­ate a brighter future for the cats:

Snow Leop­ard Trust will be rep­re­sented in Bishkek by Brad Ruther­ford, Snow Leop­ard Trust’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, who will be joined by the Trust’s Sci­ence and Con­ser­va­tion Direc­tor Charudutt Mishra, and Rhet­ick Sen­gupta, Vice-​President of the Board of Direc­tors. They will be avail­able for inter­views and com­ments dur­ing the Global Forum when­ever their sched­ules allow.

(Source: Snow Leop­ard Trust press release, 10.10.2013)