S.P. Sharma
Tribune News Service
Jammu, July 8
The Planning Commission has not allowed funds to five Himalayan states to save snow leopard, an endangered species, facing threat to its survival.
Sources said the commission had refused to fund a separate snow leopard project and had asked the five state governments to merge the project with ongoing schemes for the conservation of wildlife. Project Tiger and Project Elephant will also be merged in the main scheme in the 11th plan.
The Union Ministry of Environment on July 31 last year set up a committee under the chairmanship of additional director- general of forests (wildlife) to draft strategy and action plan for the formulation of Project Snow Leopard. Chief wildlife wardens of J&K, Himachal, Uttarakhand Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, which are considered home to snow leopard, were, besides others, included as members of the committee. The committee, set up on the recommendation of a national workshop at Leh in July last year, is learnt to have prepared a report within stipulated eight months with inputs of all five states and strategies to protect the endangered species.
Disallowing separate funds for the project, the commission has asked these governments to formulate strategy within existing wildlife schemes by earmarking 3 per cent of the total outlay for this purpose. The commission is also learnt to have suggested the Wildlife Departments should pursue a landscape level approach by focusing on the entire terrain where snow leopards move. Confining to the wildlife sanctuaries will not be a proper approach.
Wildlife experts had hopes on the conservation of snow leopard in the high altitude when the committee was set up. However, the action of the commission has disappointed them. They expressed concern over the fast dwindling number of the species in the country where estimates put the number of snow leopards at only 500 with about 60 per cent of their population in the Ladakh region.
The five Himalayan states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal , Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, the abode of the snow leopard, have expressed inability to conserve the species unless the Centre announces a project on snow leopard.
The Leh workshop had stressed the species could be conserved only through a focused strategy and action plan. It was essential local communities were involved in conservation efforts.
Population of snow leopard in the world went down to 1000 in 1960s, but now it is estimated to have increased to more than 3500. Snow leopard is found in China, Bhutan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Burma, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and India.
The Centre had been going slow on the conservation of the snow leopard as it was 20 years ago that concern was expressed about the decreasing population of the species at an international symposium on snow leopard held at Srinagar in 1986.
Wildlife experts have expressed concern over the gradual opening of the snow leopard areas to development pressures threatening its habitat. The Ladakh area has remained neglected from wildlife conservation point. Piecemeal efforts for the conservation of the snow leopard have been made from time to time. A scheme for its protection was formulated in 1988 when an area of 18,627 sq km in the five states was brought under its conservation. Protection of snow leopard again came into focus in 2004 at a two-day workshop at Jammu and a concept paper was drafted to initiate the project snow leopard.
At the workshop at Leh, representatives of all five states shared concern that the high altitudes of the country were generally close to international borders, some of which are also conflict zones. The presence of military and paramilitary forces often harmed interests of wildlife. The issue required to be addressed under a project on snow leopard, they had suggested.
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