Persian leopards are poached and trapped without much notice. “Ultimately, these forests should be managed in a modern way – using scientific documentation, effective forest rangers and funds from tourism to protect the region’s exceptional biodiversity,” he says. Allow Facebook friends to see your upcoming events? “If their oak forests continue to shrink, then the continued existence of the Persian leopard will become unsustainable.”. Amid the waning ability of the regional government to enforce laws that protect the region’s wildlife, Iraqi Kurdistan’s extensive minefields have become one of the last bastions against illegal logging and poaching in the region. The Persian Leopard has a strong, stocky body, with short legs and broad paws. The economic crisis and reduced police presence have, in turn, led to a surge in hunting. “Hunters are just walking the mountain and killing whatever they see,” says Raza. Eventbrite, and certain approved third parties, use functional, analytical and tracking cookies (or similar technologies) to understand your event preferences and provide you with a customized experience. It hasblack markings on its head and neck, and larger rosette shapes on its back, sides, and Last modified on Thu 6 Aug 2020 19.37 BST. The purchase of the land was approved by the Kurdistan regional government in January 2019 and the organisation is hoping that Iraq’s federal government will approve the area’s national park status in 2021.
Saman Ahmad, the president of Kurdistan Botanical Foundation, an organisation dedicated to recording and preserving the country’s plant life, believes that, amid the economic crisis and ongoing security issues, the minefields are the only thing effectively defending Iraqi Kurdistan’s remaining wild oak forests. The Nightmare Before Christmas (Gabriel Adam Pictures Style), https://parody.fandom.com/wiki/Persian_Leopard?oldid=2139868. Persian leopards were once distributed across the whole Caucasus region, Iranian and Anatolian Plateaus and Central Asia. Dliva Abdulla is the mayor of the Qara Dagh municipality and lives in a town next to the striking mountain range. As recently as the 1980s, the forest covered the slopes of the mountain – also known as Birah Magrun – as well as the surrounding area, and the leopard was commonly seen by hunters. And yet, the Persian leopard, shows up in impossible places, like for the first time, in 2018 camera trapped in Kazakhstan, near the border with Turkmenistan. “It’s easy to feel like you are powerless to stop the destruction of habitat,” says Raza.
“The oak tree is a keystone species in Iraqi Kurdistan,” says Raza. “But right now, with all the problems that the region faces, this just isn’t feasible. Trend data is however missing and therefore, it is at the moment unknown whether the population in Turkmenistan is stable or declining. Photograph by Umar Semenov Feature Rare Persian Leopards Released Into … Turkmenistan and its closed nature. Iran-Iraq tensions. The main driver of the current wave of logging in the region is a worsening economic crisis. But intensive illegal logging means the forest now ends abruptly halfway down the mountainside, where it runs into a barren land studded by tree stumps and grazed by herds of goats. “At the moment, it is probably best that the mines stay in the ground to [keep people away and] prevent people from cutting down trees and disturbing the natural habitat.”. In 2014, the Halgurd Sakran National Park was named the region’s first national park, but the project was derailed by the rise of Isis, which took control of Mosul, Iraq’s second city, in June the same year. “The forest police can’t control it. Abdulla says that many of those living in his municipality cut down trees to provide fuel for cooking and heating. Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in Armenia-Azerbaijan. Other animals, such as the Persian fallow deer and the Asiatic lion, are already extinct in the region. By closing this banner or by continuing to use Eventbrite, you agree. The Persian leopard , also called Caucasian leopard, is the largest leopard subspecies, and is native to eastern Turkey, the Caucasus mountains, northern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, and parts of western Afghanistan. Rapidly accelerating loss of habitat is threatening the very existence of the Persian leopard in Iraq, according to Hana Raza, a biologist from the conservation organisation Nature Iraq, who has been monitoring the population of the predators for more than a decade. The range lies in a region where the ecosystems of the Zagros mountain and the Mediterranean steppe overlap, making it highly biodiverse and home to more than 900 different plant species. Events are social. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. This increase in hunting is damaging the population of wild goats and wild boar, which the leopards depend on for food.
Across many parts of their range, the leopard prey is subject to intense poaching, affecting the leopards and causing them to silently disappear. Tatjana Rosen is a wildlife conservationist normally based in Central Asia. But it, too, has seen an increase in illegal logging as villagers struggle to make money. Leopards possibly also occur in the northern region of Iraq. More mines were added when Saddam Hussein’s forces systematically destroyed villages during campaigns against the Kurds in the late 80s and early 90s. She holds degrees in international law and wildlife ecology from the Universita' Statale di Milano, Harvard Law School and Yale University. “The forest police are so low on resources that they can’t afford petrol for their vehicles and have had to reduce the number of patrols,” says Abdulla. Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. The Iraqi Kurdistan Mine Action Agency estimates that mines cover nearly 226 sq kilometres within the region, with most concentrated along the country’s mountainous border with Iran – where they continue to kill and maim people.
My LUIS ALBERTO VIDEOS GALVAN PONCE Poster's. Physically, border fences and landmines make the travels across countries of the Persian leopard daunting. The Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor), also called the Caucasian leopard or Central Asian leopard, is the largest leopard subspecies native to the Caucasus region, southern Turkmenistan, northern Iran and parts of western Afghanistan. Minefields left over from the Iran-Iraq war are one of the last bastions against illegal logging and poaching, Sat 20 Jun 2020 09.15 BST The endangered status of the Persian leopard, including its resilience against many odds, have inspired the push to list the species under the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) Central Asian Mammals Initiative and initiate a series of discussions to develop a Regional Strategy for the conservation of the Persian leopard in the long-term. Requests should be made as soon as possible. Now, Nature Iraq is working to establish a smaller formally recognised conservation park for Persian leopards that would contain the nine peaks of the Qopi Qara Dagh. Ongoing insecurity in Afghanistan. Across their range, they navigate a landscape that is politically also very challenging. Unfortunately, these traits make them also more vulnerable to declines, as the threats they face can often go undetected. “Every year when I return there are fewer trees – and it’s not just one mountain – the decimation of the native oak forests is accelerating all over Iraqi Kurdistan,” says Raza. It is light in colour, with variations from pale to dark. Log in or sign up for Eventbrite to save events you're interested in. The Parody Wiki is a FANDOM Lifestyle Community. “They are still trying to strictly enforce anti-poaching laws – but with the laws against logging they have to be more lenient for the sake of people’s families,” he adds. For more information please review our cookie policy. In 2018, plans for a transnational protected park, which would have included mountains in Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan, were put on hold when nine conservation scientists and researchers from the Tehran-based Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation were accused of espionage. Neither Abdulla nor the forest police, tasked with preventing illegal deforestation, had received their salaries from the KRG by the end of April. It is named on the IUCN Red List as a highly endangered species with as few as 870 animals thought to Iran and its conservationists suffering because of US sanctions and politics. In April, the dead body of a three-year-old leopard was found on Birah Magrun, Nature Iraq reported. In this case the hunter shot the leopard, but didn’t kill it instantly, and couldn’t track it afterwards – leaving the carcass to be found at a later date by someone else.”. All rights reserved. It is endangered throughout its range with fewer than 871–1,290 mature individuals and a declining population trend. Iraqi Kurdistan, which relies on the oil and gas sector for about 80% of government revenues, was struggling to deal with ballooning debt at the end of 2019. After working as an international lawyer for 7 years she transitioned to wildlife conservation, working on wolves and brown bears in the Yellowstone and snow leopards and Persian leopards in Central Asia. Find out more about how your privacy is protected. “But over the last century, the Kurdish people have sacrificed so much to keep control of these mountains. At the same time, the once-common Persian leopard’s global adult population is estimated to have been reduced to between 800 and 1,200. A Persian leopard walks through the grounds of the reintroduction center in Sochi. The series of nine mountain peaks, known as the Qopa Qara Dagh, is interspersed by eight valleys and is one of the few places where the Persian leopard has been photographed in Iraqi Kurdistan. As well as the Persian leopard, at least 17 bird species are threatened, including the Egyptian vulture. Between 1999 and 2018, almost half of Iraqi Kurdistan’s forests – more than 890,000 hectares (2.2m acres) – were destroyed, mostly by logging and forest fires, according to surveys carried out by the United Nations and the Kurdistan regional government (KRG). This talk will explore the history of Persian leopard conservation, the stakeholders involved, the politics and the challenges as well as highlight the hope that its conservation can be a means to securing greater peace and dialogue in the region. Efforts to set up an international-standard national park within the region have failed amid economic and political instability. Mines left from previous decades make Iraqi Kurdistan one of the five most heavily mined regions in the world. Your email will only be seen by the event organizer. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, frontlines shifted backwards and forwards across the mountains and it is estimated that more than 20m landmines were planted. The Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor), also called the Caucasian leopard or Central Asian leopard, is the largest leopard subspecies native to the Caucasus region, southern Turkmenistan, northern Iran and parts of western Afghanistan. They inhabit rugged and hard-to-access terrain and, because of their shy nature, they tend to be difficult to observe and thus to study.
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