A World Forum on conservation of the snow leopard will be held in the fall of 2013 in Bishkek. The forum is expected to provide a stimulus to the efforts to preserve the animal and its habitat. The forum participants are also expected to adopt a global program to preserve this rare animal, which is included in the Red List of Threatened Species.

The first meeting on the organization of the World Forum was held on December 1-3, 2012 in Bishkek. Following the meeting, the Bishkek Recommendations on the Conservation of Snow Leopards and their High-Mountain Ecosystems were adopted. They formed the basis for continued efforts to preserve the snow leopard in the countries that contain its habitat and by international organizations.

In the run up to the World Forum, it was agreed that the countries of the leopard’s habitat would prepare their national priority programs until 2020, on the bases of which a Global Program on the Conservation of the Snow Leopard will be developed.

National programs will have a single structure that will include a description of the snow leopard’s habitat, threat assessment (traditional and related to climate change), cross-border cooperation, creation of reliable coordination and monitoring systems and development of measures to conserve the leopard and its habitat.

Russia is home to the northern boundary of the snow leopard’s modern-day habitat. There are stable groups of snow leopards in the most comfortable areas of the habitat in the mountains of Altai-Sayan region. Russia is home to just 1%-2% of the world’s snow leopard population. The leopard’s conservation in Russia largely depends on ensuring of geographic and genetic connections with the species’ core population area in Mongolia.