Javadekar seeks global effort to double snow leopard population

Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday sought global cooperation to double the population of snow leopards in the coming decades at the launch of the first national protocol to enumerate the snow leopard population in India. Javadekar was addressing the inaugural session of the fourth steering committee meeting of the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection (GSLEP) programme at Vigyan Bhawan on the occasion of International Snow Leopard Day. "All countries can work together and enumerate the number of snow leopards. We will strive to double the snow leopard population in the world in the coming decade," said Prakash Javadekar.

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The Minister also pointed out that the importance of the enumeration of such animals is to double their population as early as possible. "The two-day conference is very important because I believe that discussions, deliberations, cooperation, learning from each other and sharing the best practices make us all rich," Javadekar said.

Highlighting the recently conducted tiger survey, Prakash Javadekar said, "It was a challenging exercise, but India has done it and the population has touched 2,967 tigers, which is 77% of the world tiger population. Just like that, we will go ahead with the conservation of snow leopards." Twelve range countries have come together on International Snow Leopard Day to undertake a massive exercise to get the global count of snow leopards and strive to double its already existing population. The nations participating are – Russia, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Bhutan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

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Snow leopards in India

India is believed to have 400-700 snow leopards spread across four Himalayan states – Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, and the Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. India is believed to have the third-highest population of snow leopards, after China and Mongolia, however, an exact count is not yet available. Poaching is a major threat to the high altitude predator, so is the clearing of forest cover to make way for roads and building constructions. Project Snow Leopard is an initiative by the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change which aims to conserve the country's unique natural heritage of high altitude wildlife population and their habitats by promoting conservation through participatory policies and actions.

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