: Death of Wolf Inspires Hero; Dedicates His Life to Protect Snow Leopards, Gazelles #IndiaNEWS #Ladakh Earlier this week, 56-year-old Karma Sonam, a field manager with the Nature Conservation Foundation

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Death of Wolf Inspires Hero; Dedicates His Life to Protect Snow Leopards, Gazelles #IndiaNEWS #Ladakh
Earlier this week, 56-year-old Karma Sonam, a field manager with the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) in Ladakh, received the Natwest Group Earth Heroes Inspire Award 2021. Karma received the award for his outstanding work in reducing human-wildlife conflict in 17 communities across eastern Ladakh and creating awareness about the importance of environmental protection. Working in close coordination with agro pastoralist communities, he has helped protect endangered wildlife species like the elusive snow leopard, Himalayan wolf, Tibetan gazelle, bharal (blue sheep) and the Tibetan argali, among others.
His focus, however, has largely been on the snow leopard and the Himalayan wolf. Leveraging a system of community-based conservation, he has helped implement fascinating initiatives like self-sustaining insurance schemes for pastoralists who lose their livestock to predators, creation of grazing-free reserves for herbivores like the Tibetan gazelle that are prey for snow leopards and converting Shandongs (traditional wolf traps) into holy Buddhist sites.
Khenrab Phuntsog, a wildlife guard with the Wildlife Protection Department in Leh district, talks about why Karma deserves this recognition.
“There is no doubt that Kaga (elder brother in Ladakhi) Karma deserves this award for the effort and dedication he has put into wildlife conservation in Ladakh for the last 15 years. He has the ability of establishing close relationships with different communities and convincing them to work for wildlife conservation. For decades our pastoralists have had a difficult relationship with predators like snow leopards and wolves who prey on their livestock. Take the example of his work converting Shangdongs (wolf traps) into stupas (or chortens which are mound-like shrines). It’s an ingenious way of ensuring no one from their community kills another wolf in it given how genuinely these people take their Buddhist faith,� says Khenrab.
Karma Sonam engaging with a pastoralist community in eastern Ladakh (Image courtesy Karma Sonam)
Violence Before Repentance
Born and raised in Rumste, a hamlet that lies about 78 km from Leh and forms a part of the larger Gya village, Karma grew up in a family of agro-pastoralists.
“As a child, I would climb up on horses along with my uncles to the pastures above our hamlet and collect manure from our livestock grazing there. At the time, my family had about 250 animals as part of our livestock. All our earnings were dependent on them. On one such sortie with my father as a 10-year-old, I remember heading to a pasture land about 7 km from our hamlet, where we came across a Shangdong or traditional wolf trap and a crowd of herders that had gathered around it.

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