Saving snow leopards will invariably help save the Third Pole and the ecosystem depends on it
A 1982 documentary shot by National Geographic on the polar bears of Churchill on the shores of Hudson Bay in the Canadian province of Manitoba showed how the little town was the ‘polar bear capital of the world’, how bears visited the town every year in hordes and their interactions with local residents.
The whole world was captivated by those images. In the years to come, polar bears became the mascots of human-induced climate change, especially in the two poles.
However, the global cryosphere is not restricted to the two poles. There is a ‘Third Pole’ as well. This region is home to most of the snow and ice on Earth outside the poles. From this region, at least 15 rivers fan out in every direction across the Asian continent, providing clean water for a third of the world’s population.
Is it then time for another mascot, at least in these high mountains of Asia, one that people here can relate to? That’s where the snow leopard comes into the picture.
Snow leopards are a keystone species for high mountain Asia. And much like the Third Pole, they too are facing obliteration. Experts believe there are between 3,500-7,000 snow leopards in the wild. They are classified as vulnerable in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species.
Saving snow leopards will invariably help save the Third Pole and the ecosystem depends on it.
According to experts, despite the Third Pole’s importance for biodiversity and ecological security, and its keystone species, it has often been out of public and political conservation consciousness due to its remoteness and sparse human populations.
They believe it is critical for snow leopard conservation and human welfare to implement effective climate adaptation and resilience measures in the Third Pole.
To achieve that, we must improve our understanding of how warming and the consequent melting of snow and glaciers will affect snow leopards and the Third Pole’s indigenous communities.
This World Snow Leopard Day, we should give serious thought to this idea. Indeed, we need several, not just one symbol or mascot of climate change.
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