May 2015: A year after launching a pilot program to fight poaching of endangered snow leopards and their prey in Kyrgyzstan, the Snow Leopard Trust with INTERPOL and partners will expand the Citizen-Ranger Wildlife Protection Program (CRWPP) to include all 19 of the country’s state parks and nature reserves.

Funded through the UK Government’s Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund, this project trains, publicly honors and financially rewards park rangers and local community members that successfully apprehend illegal hunters. The INTERPOL Environmental Security Sub-Directorate will be working in close collaboration with the Snow Leopard Trust, the Snow Leopard Foundation in Kyrgyzstan and government agencies to enhance law enforcement responses to the poaching of snow leopards in Kyrgyzstan. INTERPOL will specifically focus on delivering quality training to rangers on investigative skills and standard enforcement techniques over a period of three years.

The initiative will be led by INTERPOL’s Project Predator, primarily supported by USAID. Project Predator has been actively participating in international snow leopard conservation efforts for several years, including the drafting of the Law Enforcement Component in the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program, 2013. [Snow Leopard Trust News] [IISD RS Sources]