Getting Climate-smart with the Snow Leopard in Central Asia: A Species and Climate Change Brief for the Vanishing Treasures Programme

This brief is one in a series that also includes the mountain gorilla and the royal Bengal tiger, produced under the Vanishing Treasures programme. Its goal is to highlight how climate change is – and will be – impacting the conservation of the snow leopard in Central Asia, particularly within the countries of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The brief examines how climate change has multiple, and often interacting, impacts on the snow leopard – be it directly on its physiology, i.e. on the ecosystems and prey species on which the snow leopard depends, or indirectly on the behaviours of humans living in their surroundings – with important feedback loops that affect their conservation. It also includes a series of possible options for policymakers and conservation practitioners in the region. The potential solutions are based on consultations at the local and national level and will be further explored and developed in the course of the Vanishing Treasures programme. They do not, however, refer to the definitive approach being taken by the programme.