How does Community-Based Eco-Tourism Save Snow Leopards?

Goal — Local communities become guardians of healthy populations of snow leopards.

How? By minimizing livestock depredation while empowering local people to directly benefit from an ecosystem that includes snow leopards.

We build on already-existing opportunities for generating income. We train and support village women’s cooperatives to offer tourists Traditional Himalayan Homestays and Parachute Cafés. Solar cookers, provided as a subsidized loan, contribute to the hygienic, ecologically friendly, and sustainable operation of these facilities. They will be repaid at about 50% of cost, which goes into a community improvement fund. We also train men and women to be village-based nature guides, offering visitors short walks or day hikes to look for plants, birds and other wildlife.

These eco-tourism activities preserve the traditional culture while improving livelihoods; and it all adds up to communities being willing and able to protect their fragile, high-altitude ecosystem, and the snow leopards who make it their home.

Read about the successful winter 2007 Quest for the Snow Leopard.

You can visit beautiful and remote Ladakh if you join the Snow Leopard Conservancy on one of our special Snow Leopard Treks.

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