Project Snow Leopard

Project Snow Leopard is a Government of India conservation programme focused on protecting the snow leopard and the high-altitude ecosystems of the Indian Himalayas.

Launched in 2009, the programme takes a landscape-level approach to conservation, recognising that protecting snow leopards also requires protecting their prey, habitats and the communities that live across these mountain landscapes. The original programme covers biologically important high-altitude landscapes across Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

Key Objectives

Project Snow Leopard focuses on:

Conserving snow leopard populations and their habitats
Protecting high-altitude wildlife and ecosystems
Improving scientific monitoring and research
Conserving prey species and ecological systems
Reducing human–wildlife conflict
Involving local communities in conservation
Promoting landscape-level conservation beyond individual protected areas

The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) is also included among the species covered under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change’s Recovery Programme for Critically Endangered Species and Habitats.

Why Project Snow Leopard Matters

Snow leopards inhabit some of India’s most remote mountain landscapes. Their conservation therefore depends not only on protected areas but also on maintaining connected habitats, healthy prey populations and coexistence between wildlife and high-altitude communities.

Project Snow Leopard represents an important shift towards conserving the entire high-altitude ecosystem, rather than focusing solely on the species itself.

Explore India’s snow leopard landscapes and learn about the conservation efforts protecting one of the Himalayas’ most elusive big cats.

Himalayas : Topics Cluster