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1 MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR THE UPPER SPITI LANDSCAPE INCLudiNG THE KIBBER WILDLIFE SANCTUARY July 2011 Prepared by Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore, Snow Leopard Trust-India With support of the Wildlife Wing, Himachal Pradesh Forest Department & Youth Groups in Spiti TEAM FROM NCF: Project coordination: Yash Veer Bhatnagar, PhD, Senior Scientist & Country Director, Snow Leopard Trust Team Members: Kulbhushansingh Suryavanshi, Research Scholar, Charudutt Mishra, PhD, Senior Scientist; Pranav Trivedi, PhD, Senior Scientist, Rashid H. Raza, PhD, Senior Associate, Rishi Sharma, Research Affiliate, Sumanta Bagchi, Research Associate, NCF, R. Raghunath, GS analyst, NCF, Sushil Dorje, Thinley, G. Kalzang and other members of the Kibber Youth Council TEAM FROM THE HIMACHAL PRADESH FOREST DEPARTMENT (Wildlife WINg): Shri A.K. Gulati, PCCF & Chief Wildlife Warden, Shri V Tandon, PCCF & Chief Wildlife Warden (Ex.), Shri Sanjeeva Pandey, CCF, Shri R.K. Sood, CF, Shri K.S. Thakur, CF, Shri Hira Singh, DFO, Shri H.L. Rana, DFO, Other line staff from the Spiti Wildlife Division. PREFACE The Trans Himalaya are a fascinating region of the country with unique biodiversity and culture, and high value for ecosystem services. It is a region of both high opportunity and challenge for conservation. Our team has been actively working in the region, in particular, in Spiti, over the past two decades on a variety of research initiatives on the snow leopard, its prey and its habitat, developing community-based conservation models and generating awareness through conservation education. In 2004, we also initiated efforts to catalyze the Project Snow Leopard (PSL), with the MoEF, all the Himalayan states and other agencies. PSL was finally approved in 2009 and aims to strengthen science-based conservation initiatives in this remarkable region in a landscape based manner, fully involving the local communities who are seen as the most important stakeholder. Following a request from the Chief Wildlife Warden, Himachal Pradesh, we agreed to help prepare a Management Plan in Spiti based on the principles of the PSL. While the PSL docu- ment provided an excellent working philosophy and framework for conservation in the Indian high altitudes, the opportunity to prepare the Management Plan allowed us to integrate these principles with scientific knowledge and our experience of setting up community-based con- servation models to suggest future strategies for conservation of Spiti’s wildlife. This Management Plan is focused on a large landscape (c. 3,000 sq. km) as suggested by PSL, covering more than half of the Spiti Sub-Division of the Lahaul & Spiti District of Himachal Pradesh. The landscape includes the whole of the Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary (c. 1,500 sq. km), though, again in line with PSL, the management plan is not focused on the Sanctuary per se, but on the larger landscape. In addition to using the knowledge and experience generated by several years of our work, we have conducted extensive field assessments for this Management Plan since late 2008 on the region’s biodiversity, human society, local institutions and Government Departments to update the state of knowledge. We thus use a combination of rigorous science and local knowledge and perceptions to help guide conservation strategies suggested in this Plan. There are over 30 villages of varying sizes whose inhabitants depend on the landscape’s natural resources for their sustenance. Further, over 30 Government Departments and a few NGOs strive hard to bring development to this remote corner of the country. We have consulted most of these stakehold- and staff from the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department provided support and inputs into the ers at different stages of the assessments to develop this Plan. Management Plan at different stages of its development and are gratefully thanked. The Addi- tional District Commissioner of Kaza, Shri Priyatu Mandal, provided tremendous help during The Management Plan has used existing and new information on biodiversity and human the course of the fieldwork and assessments. Other heads of the line departments and agencies society (Chapter 1, 2 & 3) to identify values of the landscape for conservation and for local working in Spiti also provided information and support during the course of our work. The communities, to thereby assess how a mosaic of community conserved areas can be developed Kibber Youth Council, our field staff in Spiti, and our PhD students, worked tirelessly dur- that have minimum negative impact on local livelihoods, and how conservation efforts can ing the course of the study and have contributed significantly to the document. Work of this in fact help in enhancing livelihoods (Chapter 5). We assessed threats to wildlife and natural magnitude requires the support of numerous people and agencies and all those that have been resources in these areas and have suggested mechanisms for mitigation based on scientific missed out here are duly acknowledged for their assistance. knowledge, experience and local knowledge (Chapter 6). Assessments with the local institu- tions and government line departments helped in identifying numerous areas of convergence as also some schemes that may compromise the status of wildlife. This yielded aspects where Yash Veer Bhatnagar both Government departments and NGOs could contribute towards conservation through for the team from Nature Conservation Foundation (Mysore) and their existing programmes, thus optimizing the resource needs (Chapter 7). A tiered adminis- June 2011 Snow Leopard Trust, India trative structure for planning and implementation of the Management Plan has been suggested as per the PSL to ensure effective participation (Chapter 9). The plan is designed to help facilitate co-operation amongst various stakeholders and and to minimize the negative impacts of developmental initiatives. Knowledge from both robust scientific work and that from the local people are key to this Management Plan preparation but work still remains for effective implementation of the Plan and is outlined in Chapter 8. The work plan, including the budget is detailed in Chapter 10. This Management Plan is the first such plan under the Project Snow Leopard. Considerable care has been taken to ensure robust content and practicality of the suggestions made in the document, but it is also recognized that there will always be scope for improvement. Apart from suggesting strategies and actionable points for comprehensive conservation in the land- scape, it is hoped that this document will be a useful resource material for all partners and others interested in conservation in Spiti. It is also hoped that this Plan will provide a suitable model for preparing Management Plans for all other PSL areas, as also any other landscape level conservation plan in the Himalaya. We are thankful to the then Chief Wildlife Warden of Himachal Pradesh - Shri Vinay Tandon, to have requested us to undertake this management planning exercise. and the present CWLW, Shri A.K. Gulati, for providing positive inputs and all possible support for its completion. In between, Shri A.K. Gupta, CWLW, organized a workshop in Shimla for discussion and feed- back. Shri Avay Shukla, Chief Secretary, Forests, Government of Himachal Pradesh reposed tremendous faith in us for this task. Shri Sanjeeva Pandey, CCF, provided support and encour- agement, and shared his valuable knowledge. Shri R.K. Sood, CF, Shri K.S. Thakur, CF, Shri H.L. Rana, DFO, Shri Hari Singh, DFO, Shri Satpal Dhiman, and numerous other officers TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I: THE SNOW LEOPARD CONSERVATION LANDSCAPE: EXISTING SITUATION CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE OVERALL FRAMEWORK FOR THE MANAGEMENT 1 PLAN UNDER THE PROJECT SNOW LEOPARD 1.1. Background 1.2. The Project Snow Leopard in the Indian Himalaya 1.3 Approach followed in preparation of this management plan CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND ATTRIBUTES OF SPITI 11 2.1 The Landscape 2.2 Biodiversity Values of the Landscape 2.3. Socio-economic profile of Spiti. 2.4. Institutions in Spiti CHAPTER 3: LANDUSE IN UPPER SPITI LANDSCAPE: THREATS & OPPORTUNITIES 63 3.1. A Brief Socioeconomic Synthesis of the Upper Spiti Landscape 3.2. Human Impacts, Especially significant social & conservation implications of changes 3.3. Threats and Opportunities 3.4. A brief synthesis of issues PART II: MANAGEMENT IN THE UPPER SPITI LANDSCAPE 85 CHAPTER 4: MANAGEMENT VISION AND OBJECTIVES FOR THE CONSERVATION OF THE 87 UPPER SPITI LANDSCAPE 4.1. Goals and Objectives 4.2. Activities to meet the Objectives: Chapter 5: ZOnation: Establish A nETwOrk Of Biologically ImPOrtanT, 93 SOCIALLY AccEPTABLE CORE LANDSCAPE UNITS IN THE UPPER SPITI LANDSCAPE 5.1. Context and Objectives 5.2. methods for identifying ‘core’ landscape units in the Upper Spiti Landscape 5.3. Core Landscape Units in the Upper Spiti Landscape Appendix 2.5: The sector-wise Strategy/objectives and details of programmes/ schemes derived from the ITDP Eleventh five year Tribal Sub-Plan (2007-2012) 5.4. Attributes of the Core Landscape Units (Anon. 2007). 5.5. Broad conservation approach for the Core Landscape Units Appendix 5.1: Threat ranking done for the 15 Core Landscape Units using an 5.6. recommended Actions absolute scale from 0 to 3. See Section 5.4.2 for details on the methods. The total Chapter 6: Management Interventions to Address Threats to 107 threat rankings for all the Core Landscape Units is given in Table 5.4. WILDLIFE Appendix 5.2: Details of each proposed site: 6.1. Context and Objectives Appendix 8.1: Himalayan Snow Leopard research Centre: Spiti 6.2. recommended Actions Appendix 8.2: UnDErSTAnDInG SnOw LEOPArD rAnGInG ALOnG A HUmAn Chapter 7: Set up Mechanisms for Collaborative Conservation in the 127 PrESSUrE GrADIEnT In SPITI, HImACHAL PrADESH LANDSCAPE Involving ALL Appropriate Stakeholders Appendix 9.1: The chapter 7 of the PSL Document (Anon 2009) stating the 7.1. Context and Objectives administrative structure of the Project Snow Leopard. Appendix 9.2 (b): nOTIfICATIOn: The Governor, HP is pleased to promulgate 7.2.

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