Snow Leopard Trust, 4649 Sunnyside Avenue N., Seattle, 98103, WA, USA.
Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation, Khan-Uul Sukhbaatar District, 3rd 4th Khoroo, Street Sharav, Chingis Ave53-9, Ulan Baatar, 17042, Mongolia.
Environ Manage. 2021 Jul;68(1):87-99. doi: 10.1007/s00267-021-01469-8. Epub 2021 Apr 12.
Financial mechanisms to mitigate the costs of negative human-carnivore interactions are frequently promoted to support human coexistence with carnivores. Yet, evidence to support their performance in different settings is scarce. We evaluated a community-based livestock insurance program implemented as part of a broader snow leopard conservation effort in the Tost Tosonbumba Nature Reserve, South Gobi, Mongolia. We assessed program efficiency and effectiveness for snow leopard conservation using a results-based evaluation approach. Data sources included program records from 2009 to 2018, as well as surveys conducted in 2016 and 2017, which allowed us to compare key indicators across communities that participated in the insurance program and control communities. Program coverage and number of livestock insured rapidly increased over the years to reach 65% of households and close to 11,000 livestock. Participants expressed satisfaction with the program and their contributions increased over time, with an increasing proportion (reaching 64% in 2018) originating from participant premiums, suggesting strong community ownership of the program. Participants were less likely to report the intention to kill a snow leopard and reported fewer livestock losses than respondents from control communities, suggesting increased engagement in conservation efforts. These results together suggest that the insurance program achieved its expected objectives, although it is challenging to disentangle the contributions of each individual conservation intervention implemented in intervention communities. However, in the first three years of the program, snow leopard mortalities continued to be reported suggesting that additional interventions were needed to reach impact in terms of reducing retaliatory killings of large carnivores.
经济手段可以减轻人兽冲突的成本，因此经常被用来支持人类与食肉动物共存。然而，支持这些手段在不同环境下发挥作用的证据却很少。我们评估了在蒙古南戈壁省托斯·托森布姆巴自然保护区实施的一项基于社区的牲畜保险计划，该计划是更广泛的雪豹保护努力的一部分。我们采用基于成果的评估方法，评估了该计划在雪豹保护方面的效率和效果。数据来源包括 2009 年至 2018 年的计划记录，以及 2016 年和 2017 年进行的调查，这使我们能够比较参与保险计划和对照组社区的关键指标。多年来，计划的覆盖面和保险牲畜数量迅速增加，达到了 65%的家庭和近 11000 头牲畜。参与者对该计划表示满意，并且随着时间的推移，他们的贡献也在增加，其中越来越多的人（2018 年达到 64%）来自参与者的保费，这表明社区对该计划具有强烈的所有权。与对照组的受访者相比，参与者报告杀死雪豹的意图较低，报告的牲畜损失也较少，这表明他们更积极地参与了保护工作。这些结果表明，该保险计划实现了预期目标，尽管很难将干预社区实施的每一项单独的保护干预措施的贡献区分开来。然而，在该计划的头三年中，仍有雪豹死亡的报告，这表明需要采取额外的干预措施，以减少对大型食肉动物的报复性杀戮，从而实现影响。
