RDF, with the support of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and the Christensen Fund as part of an initiative to conserve snow leopards and their habitats, launched the new project, “Protecting the Snow Leopard through Kyrgyz Traditional Environmental Knowledge”. The main goal of the project is to promote social actions among schoolchildren and young people to protect snow leopards. The project will disseminate available information about the most popular and rare animals, birds and plants, and develop a Zhibi Snow Leopard Conservation Platform in the snow leopard habitats in pilot regions of Kyrgyzstan. The project also involves teachers from pilot schools, experts from the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic and the Academy of Education of the Kyrgyz Republic.
The project aims to develop a digital, interactive map demonstrating the habitats of snow leopards with other animals, birds and plants, as well as a brochure for educational purposes. RDF will collect information to create the interactive digital map and the brochure in collaboration with the pastoral network, Kyrgyz el Akyl Kazyna, which represents 7 regions of the country.
The pilot regions of the snow leopard habitats include some ethnic Kyrgyz communities of the Murgab district in Tajikistan, and we plan to involve students from these communities in the Snow Leopard Rally, which will be the final event of the project. The project plans to establish Zhibi Snow Leopard Conservation Platform among young people in order to promote information exchange and to raise awareness. The platform will also serve to call for joint action to establish local protection centres for the conservation of snow leopards and other rare and valuable animals and plants in their communities with the participation of teachers of pilot schools.
We will be grateful to receive your feedbacks, interesting conservation stories, or stories of the Kyrgyz nomadic culture passed down from the older generations. We would also like to hear local legends about animals, birds and plants. If you would be kind enough to share them with us and contribute to the conservation of snow leopards and their habitats, as well as to the conservation of our traditional knowledge,