Two persons were sentenced to two years imprisonment and Rs5 million fine each for poaching of the endangered animal. Two other persons were given one year jail term and fine. GILGIT: Five people have been convicted of poaching in Hopar, Nager and sent to jail, said a press statement issued by the WildLife and Forest Department, Gilgit-Baltistan on Wednesday. High …

The COVID-19 pandemic shows how wildlife crime is a threat not only to the environment but to human health, according to a new UN report issued on Friday. The World Wildlife Crime Report 2020 outlines how trafficking in some wild species, which are then butchered and sold illegally, can increase the transmission of diseases that spread from animals to humans. No country …

Want to learn more about National Geographic’s feature on snow leopards and community conservation? Ajay Bijoor takes you behind the scenes of the story   Getting to know the people of Kibber My first interaction with a larger group of local people in Kibber was at a livestock insurance meeting. Winter hadn’t set in fully, but the evenings had grown …

Tourism and climate change are transforming the fragile mountain ecosystems in the Karakorams, Himalaya-Hindu Kush and Pamirs. Ang Rita Sherpa, a native of Gokyo, in an article in Nepali Times, reflects on the increasing pressure of human activities on natural spaces and the lakes in the Solokhumbu district of Nepal. Chairman of Partners Nepal, a local nonprofit organisation that helps Himalayan …

At the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday, a teenager from Côte d’Ivoire explained why protecting the environment matters so much. News Desk The rare and refreshing intervention came from 14-year-old activist Junior, who spoke out against alleged industrial pollution, including from the cocoa production sector, in his home town of San-Pédro, in the West African State, UN News reported. Bachelet warning At …

Agricultural village in Badakhshan, Afghanistan. Photo by Christopher Wilton-Steer/UCA Herald Report In Pamir mountains of High Asia region with limited agricultural lands, rugged topography, and large gradients, the preservation of agrobiodiversity and an appreciation of traditional knowledge about food systems are essential ingredients of a sustainable future. Hence the University of Central Asia’s Mountain Societies Research Institute (MSRI) has begun …

Tourists are getting unprecedented glimpses of snow leopards in India as attitudes toward the predators change, writes Peter Gwin in a feature that will appear in the National Geographic’s July 2020 edition The old snow leopard was well-known in Kibber. It was unclear when he’d claimed the gorges and cliffs around this ancient Himalayan village, but over the past few years, the …

Mongolian herder woman Sainaa shares her perspective on snow leopards and her experience with community-based conservation programs   By Liz Daniel   My name is Sainaa I live the cold winter months in the northwestern-most part of Mongolia called the Yamaat Valley. I am part of a community of herders who live at Yamaat Mountain in Uvs province, which is …

Witness Zaya’s flying snow leopard cub in action and learn about the challenges that Zaya’s landscape faces.   BY MARISSA NIRANJAN, JUSTINE SHANTI ALEXANDER AND LIZ DANIEL   Zaya is a female snow leopard that our team is studying in the Zoolon Mountains of Mongolia’s Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park. She is among 13-16 snow leopards identified across these mountains …

    M Ajmal K Masood   While travelling to the north, most of the youth make their travelling statuses as ‘mountains are calling’. This phrase is not merely a social media buzzword but resonates the social, cultural and spiritual relations between the people and the mountains. In the primitive age, human being living in mountainous regions such as High …