Nature Guide trainees participating in group activities

How do Nature Guides Save Snow Leopards?

We build on already-existing opportunities for generating income, by providing vocational training to local youths who wish to become nature guides, and offer tourists a range of day-hikes near their village.

This employment opportunity encourages some young people to spend more time in their village, helping to raise environmental awareness, rather than migrating to the cities, which erodes links between the generations within ancestral communities. Thus nature guiding contributes to the building of communities willing and able to take responsibility for protecting their fragile, high-altitude ecosystem, and the snow leopards who make it their home.

In June, 2003, thirteen young men and women from villages in Ladakh’s Hemis National Park took part in SLC’s first nature guide training.

After learning the basics of biodiversity conservation and its importance, and techniques for spotting and identifying birds, butterflies, plants and animals, they took to the field for hands-on practice.

The second training, funded by the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund, took place in the Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary, Spiti in the summer of 2004, in collaboration with the Ecotourism & Conservation Society of Sikkim (ECOSS) and MUSE. Sixteen local men and women learned about responsible tourism, the opportunities for earning supplemental income from both nature and culture guiding, and how they might take a more active role in planning for tourism in Spiti. Two participants from Ladakh also attended the workshop, sharing their experiences and lessons learned.

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