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| Community Conservation Teams
We are providing equipment and training to local conservation teams, both in the Forestry Department of Xinjiang and within livestock farming communities in the Taxkurgan area. The provision of binoculars, handheld GPS units, digital cameras and notebooks for field teams will enables them to collect monitoring data from a wide area, maximizing the scope of the surveying. Additional infrastructural support will be provided for the Taxkurgan office of the Forestry Department of Xinjiang to establish an effective central control unit within the area, collating field information, directing field operations and providing vital conservation management information. Full training and support will be provided on the techniques and approach of the project. We envisage the Taxkurgan office developing into an International Center of Excellence for the coordination of community conservation effort. |
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Key survey areas will be determined in response to primary interviews with knowledgeable people within the Province and local areas. Interviews will be primarily used to identify areas that contain snow leopards, and will be cross referenced with other interviews as far as possible. Interviews will be semi-structured, with a series of standard questions (to be determined), but interviewees will also be allowed to elaborate. Such additional information will be analyzed further, adding contextual information or being use to construct attitudinal indices. Interviews will be carried out with key people living and working in the study areas, for example: Xinjiang Forestry Department staff; Taxkurgan Nature Reserve staff; villagers; and herdsman. |
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The Project
We are undertaking a responsive research programme, carried out in a number of phases. At each phase we have set clear deliverable objectives, in response to the outcomes of previous phases. In the primary phase outlined here, we propose to conduct repeat surveys of snow leopards and their prey within the Taxkurgan area to determine the current distribution and the position of potential “hotspot” areas (First Order Survey). This initial surveying will include interviews with local people, including villagers, government officials and others with local and regional wildlife knowledge; and systematic surveys of snow leopard sign and prey animals.
The involvement of the local communities living within the Taxkurgan area will be central to this and subsequent phases. We will seek to enhance the network of field staff and community conservationists through training and by providing equipment for their work. We envisage local community conservationists taking an active part in the monitoring of snow leopards and other wildlife, providing vital data collection over a wider area.
Subsequent research phases, will aim to provide more precise population estimates within identified hotspot areas; to determine the spatial and habitat use of snow leopards; and to identify key factors influencing the survival and conservation of snow leopards in this area. This will include assessment of changes in livestock grazing patterns and density in recent years. We anticipate that the evidence gathered through this research programme will contribute significantly to conservation management plans within this area.