Awareness capacity building
Awareness generation activities are conducted amongst schools & communities to ensure environmental education on biodiversity conservation & responsible tourism.
Regular meetings with local communities
Regular meetings are conducted with local communities to make them aware about importance of wildlife conservation and to address human-wildlife conflicts.
Habitat Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation
In-situ situ conservation
Construction & repair of water ponds for wild animals is done in protected areas as well as outside it to restore and maintain the habitat for wild ungulates and carnivores
Pasture development- Pasture development is an important habitat restoration activity which includes cultivation of palatable grass species through patch sowing technique. Development of pasture adds to fodder availability for wild ungulates as well as for domestic cattle.
Pasture development done in Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary
Protection of habitat & Human Animal conflict Management
- Resource protection
Resource & habitat protection through regular patrolling by field staff as well as anti-poachers engaged by HP Forest department for this purpose.
- Sustainable Eco developmental Activities
Management of wildlife-based tourism through collaboration between local communities and field staff of HPFD. For sustaining such eco developmental activities, Eco development committees have been created in villages such as Chicham & Kibber
Population estimation surveys of Wild animals
Training & Capacity building of field staff
Many activities are conducted to build capacities of the field staff in order to ensure proper habitat protection and monitoring measures being implemented on the ground.
Management of wildlife-based tourism through collaboration between local communities and field staff of HPFD. For sustaining such eco developmental activities, Eco development committees have been created in villages such as Chicham & Kibber (part of Transition zone of CDBR).
Project Snow Leopard
The Snow leopard is the State animal of Himachal Pradesh, and the State Forest Department’s commitment to snow leopard conservation is evident in the active role it has played, along with the Nature Conservation Foundation, in assisting MoEF, GoI to develop Project Snow Leopard. These two agencies have also been collaborating to generate sound scientific knowledge in the Spiti Valley, one of India’s most important snow leopard landscapes.
The Wildlife Wing, Himachal Pradesh Forest Department (HPFD) and the Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore (NCF) have been leading some of the efforts of both research and conservation in the Snow leopard range in Spiti. The HPFD and NCF have also prepared a detailed landscape based and participatory Management Plan for the entire Spiti Wildlife Division.
Snow Leopard Project for Rs 5.15 Crores has been accepted by the MoEF, GOI commencing from 2010-11 onwards for a period of four years. Under this project, a globally unique, setting up of a field-based snow leopard research and conservation facility in the Spiti Valley has been proposed, to undertake India’s first comprehensive and long-term radio-collaring project on snow leopards and their prey. The only other such facility in Asia is the one set up by the Snow Leopard Trust, together with other partners and the Mongolian Government. However the Mongolian habitat differs considerably from the Himalayan ones; one primary difference being that while the former is mostly between 1,000 and 2,500m, the latter are mostly above 3,200 m.
Himalayan Snow Leopard Research Centre
The Himalayan Snow Leopard Research Centre to be set up in Spiti shall give a further boost to snow leopard research and conservation in the country with the broad goal of instituting and encouraging focused short and long-term studies pertaining to snow leopards. Following are the specific objectives:
- Set up a research and training centre for snow leopard conservation with necessary infrastructure for carrying out state-of-art research programmes, which will include work space, laboratory, communication and accommodation.
- Conduct the first comprehensive snow leopard radio-collaring project in India
The Centre is proposed near the Kibber Village, which already is the site of detailed research and conservation programmes led by HPFD and NCF.
