Snow leopard conservationist Charudutt Mishra wins Whitley Gold Award for efforts to involve local communities

Charudutt Mishra, a snow leopard conservationist, was awarded the Whitely Gold Award on April 27, 2022, at the Royal Geographical Society in London, for his efforts to involve local communities in conserving the enigmatic big cat of Inner Asia.

This is Mishra’s second WFN Prize. He had won the award previously in 2005.

“Working across the species’ range of 12 countries including Afghanistan, China and Russia, the key to his success has been embedding conservation within local communities. His pioneering approach has been recognised as an outstanding global practice by the UN Biodiversity Conference,” a statement by the organisation said.

Mishra highlighted the importance of involving local communities in his acceptance speech.

“This work addresses one significant gap in conservation worldwide — our ability to work effectively with local communities, who represent one of the most important stakeholders in conservation efforts. I believe that what we do in conservation matters, but how we do it matters even more,” he said.

Mishra has several firsts to his credit vis-a-vis snow leopard conservation in Asia. He is the first international Executive Director of the Snow Leopard Trust (SLT), founded and headquartered in Seattle in 1981.

SLT is the largest and oldest organisation dedicated to promoting ecosystem and wildlife conservation across the high mountains of South and Central Asia, with the endangered snow leopard as the flagship.

Mishra was also instrumental in helping establish the intergovernmental Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Programme, which for the first time has brought authorities together in an alliance across all 12 snow leopard range countries to enhance protection.

Mishra and his team also conducted the world’s most successful snow leopard radio-collaring project. He and his team currently work directly with local people across nearly 60,000 square miles in some of the world’s most extreme environments.

He narrated an incident in his speech which he said reflected the transformative power of community-based conservation.

“When I first visited the village of Kibber 25 years ago, I learnt of a snow leopard that had been brutally killed, with men and women lining up to beat the carcass and curse the dead cat for killing their livestock,” he said.

Mishra recently went back to in the same village. “When an old snow leopard died after taking a fall while hunting, local people helped retrieve the carcass, offered it the auspicious Buddhist scarf, helped cremate it, and prayed for the departed soul,” he said.

There are an estimated 6,500 wild snow leopards in the high mountains and plateaus of twelve countries including Russia, Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, India and Mongolia.

Six other conservationists were awarded prizes during The 2022 Whitley Awards Ceremony. They are:

1. Emmanuel Amoah from Ghana, for work on the West African slender-snouted crocodile
2. Micaela Camino, Argentina, for empowering communities to defend their human rights and conserve Argentina’s Dry Chaco
3. Pablo Hoffmann, Brazil, for nurturing wild plant diversity in the Araucaria Forest region
4. Sonam Lama, Nepal, for work done on red pandas
5. Estrela Matilde, São Tomé and Príncipe, for efforts to save sea turtles
6. Dedy Yansyah, Indonesia, for work on the Sumatran rhino

Mishra will now becomes a mentor to these “six inspiring mid-career conservationists who tonight received Whitley Awards – the charity’s flagship prizes – worth £40,000 each in project funding,” the statement said.

Subscribe to Daily Newsletter :

SUPPORT US

We are a voice to you; you have been a support to us. Together we build journalism that is independent, credible and fearless. You can further help us by making a donation. This will mean a lot for our ability to bring you news, perspectives and analysis from the ground so that we can make change together.