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Project update - June 2006
Snow Leopards considered a national
treasure in Pakistan
The Pakistani Minister of State for Environment,
Mr Malik Amin Aslam Khan said last week that the endangered snow
leopard was considered a national treasure and that efforts should
be made to save the species from extinction. He was addressing
a steering committee meeting of the Snow Leopard Network (SLN),
a non-governmental organization.
The minister said that the government was
making an all out effort to create an effective mechanism to save
endangered species of rare birds and animals.
Dr Rodney Jackson, director of the Snow
Leopard Conservation, claimed that poorly constructed livestock
pens and inadequate compensation programmes had adversely affected
attempts to save the species and that a total hunting ban was
thus very difficult to enforce. He asked religious leaders to
use their influence on local people and encourage them to stop
hunting snow leopards for financial gain.
The SLN has initiated several steps
to stop the killing and poaching of snow leopards in remote areas
of the country including improving animal husbandry programmes,
information management system and an eco-system awareness plan.
These have yielded good results. An area of 81,000 sq kilometres
has been selected as potential habitat for snow leopards in the
country. Dr Thomas McCarthy, a researcher, said that the snow
leopard survival strategy was now yielding a positive outcome
as many protected areas had been established to save the specie
in several countries.
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