Many Pakistanis perhaps do not know that there are snow leopards in Pakistan’s northern mountains, mainly in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) region. Moreover, it is little known that the snow leopard population is in perpetual conflict with farmers who live in these mountains too. Snow leopards frequently kill domestic goats and sheep which are farmers’ precious resources. Sometime snow leopards come down in the villages from their mountain lairs and jump into a livestock corral (a pen or enclosure used to restrict livestock) engaging in ‘surplus killings’. In some instances a single snow leopard has killed up to 50 animals in an [...]

Until a decade ago, the only snow leopard a resident of Pakistan’s Basha Valley wanted to see was a dead one. But today the endangered big cat has brought education to their homes, especially to their daughters. Tanya Rosen, a snow leopard conservationist, was on one of her expeditions in a village called Sibiri in the valley in 2010. She found that none of the village girls were enrolled in school. Basha Valley is in Baltistan, in the Karakoram range of the Hindu Kush Himalayas, bordering Xinjiang, China. “I saw all these cute little girls watching us through the windows [...]

I was thrilled to learn that for the first time since the Equator Prize was launched by the United Nations Equator Initiative in 2002, an NGO from Pakistan has won the prestigious award for this year. Every two years, the Equator Prize showcases from around the world community efforts that strive to relieve poverty through conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity. The Baltistan Wildlife Conservation and Development Organization (BWCDO) is amongst the 15 organisations from across the world that will be awarded the 2017 Equator Prize. BWCDO working on the ground in 17 villages in Baltistan to protect endangered [...]