Ornaments of the Himalayan Mountains

Dr Tsewang Namgail distinctly recalls the day he began to love snow leopards.

A child of the Himalayas, Dr Namgail grew up in the picturesque village of Skurbuchan in remote Ladakh, India, at 3000 metres above sea level. Lush with colourful butterflies, birds, bees, and mammals, the village hosted species of pikas, lynx, wolves, antelopes and ibex.

Schooling was sporadic, owing to teachers who would come for a few weeks only to leave for months at a time. “It was a blessing in disguise because I got to learn a lot of the traditional way of doing things. We did not have a classroom until I was in the fifth standard, and we were taught at the edges of agricultural fields, so that would expose us to a lot of wild animals.”

What were the lives of these wild animals like? What threats were they facing? Questions that arose in his mind sparked a lifelong desire to uncover the mysteries of his homeland’s rich ecosystems and wildlife.

Snow leopards were an exception. As apex predators of the jagged peaks towering into the sky, they were notorious harbingers of calamity to farmers with vulnerable livestock populations.

But in 2000, the twenty-something scientist was out drawing vegetation maps in the largest national park in South Asia - the snow leopard capital of the world, Hemis National Park. Metres away stood two majestic snow leopards, seamlessly blending into the unforgiving terrain.

He could hardly contain his excitement. “When I saw them, they just took my breath away. It was so beautiful, and slowly all these negative emotions just dissipated into thin air.”

These negative emotions were omnipresent among local communities, many of whom, like his family of farmers, had lost beloved sheep and goats to snow leopard attacks.

The consequences were deadly for the mountain cat’s population. “The single most important threat for the snow leopard in Ladakh has been from these angry farmers - when the snow leopard kills the livestock, they kill the snow leopard in revenge.”

However, as a wildlife scientist, he knew the full story – that the snow leopard was a keystone species protecting high-altitude ecosystems by controlling the herbivore population. “They prevent overgrazing on the very dry and barren mountain slopes. When they do that, then there’s less flooding, for instance,” he explains.

When his friend, Rinchen Wangchuk, a naturalist and mountaineer, asked local communities to help conserve snow leopards in the early 2000s, he was met with disbelief. “How can we think about conserving an animal which is a threat to our livelihoods and our lives on a day-to-day basis?” the villagers asked.

Today, Dr Namgail is the director of the Snow Leopard Conservancy - India Trust (SLC-IT). In 2013, under his leadership, the SLC-IT took on the mammoth task of reconciling local communities with the snow leopard, tackling challenges one by one. To remove the immediate threat, they helped build impenetrable pens for livestock. “The conservancy started providing wire mesh to cover the roof of the livestock fans and strengthen the doors and door frames; sometimes they’re very rickety and weak,” Dr Namgail says.

Similarly, amidst the scourge of unsustainable tourism, which leaves trails of garbage and does not benefit local communities, some villagers suggested a homestay program. SLC-IT pioneered Himalayan Homestays, which became a global model of conservation for the snow leopard. These programs provide a strong source of income and incentive to conserve local wildlife.

“We slowly encourage people to make little artefacts which can be bought by tourists as a souvenir, using a dry needle felting technique and locally produced wool,” he says. These figures of snow leopards, ibexes, yaks and horses provide additional funds for the villagers.

“Slowly, that virtual wall between snow leopards and people was taken away with all these possibilities. Then they became much more receptive.”

SLC-IT then started educational programs designed to help Ladakhi students learn about their unique local biodiversity creatively and interact with it. These school schemes and alternative learning camps especially took off during the COVID-19 pandemic, when children were at home with little to do. “Some reticent kids who wouldn’t speak much earlier, they started planning a lot of ideas, sharing things with their parents and getting curious about their surroundings.”

Under the guidance of Dr Namgail’s vast scientific expertise, SLC-IT also began need-based research to understand the conflict between snow leopards, their prey species and humans, starting conservation programs for the prey as well.

“One day, somebody in a village said, I think we missed all of this, and we did not realise it. They are just like the ornaments of the mountains – or Ri Gyancha.” He adds that retaliatory killings in areas in which they operated had ended, and populations are either stabilised or increasing.

“In all these places, the snow leopard today is worth more alive than dead.” He attributes part of the organisation's extraordinary success to the gentle nature of the snow leopard and, to some extent, the Buddhist ethos of not harming other life forms.

There are only an estimated 2700 – 3900 mature individuals globally today. Of these, an estimated 718 snow leopards reside in the Indian Himalayas. If the climate crisis intensifies, more than one-third of the current snow leopard territory may become uninhabitable for the vulnerable alpine predator. In addition, commercial developments such as road construction, mining, expanding livestock, and the local pashmina industry are leading to a declining prey base, and poaching is still threatening the mountain cat.

He hails the creation of the first community-conserved area in the region, Tar Village in Ladakh, in 2024, the result of over a year of collaboration, as a tremendous success.

However, there’s more ground to cover. “Ladakh is vast, an area of 60 - 65,000 square kilometres and when we haven't covered all of it yet, going to new places and convincing them to go to the conservation side is the greatest challenge.”

“That’s my dream about the future - people living with wild animals in harmony, and they do their utmost to conserve the natural areas and these wild animals.”

A Himalayas where the jewels of the mountains are treasured as they deserve.