The goal of the Global Snow Leopard & Ecosystem Protection Plan (GSLEP) is for the 12 range countries, with support from interested organizations, to work together to identify and secure 20 snow leopard landscapes across the snow leopard’s range by 2020, or, in shorthand—“Secure 20 by 2020.”
These snow leopard populations and landscapes to be secured under GSLEP are relatively large (range: 5,000 to 92,000 km2), and many of these share borders with neighbouring countries.
Snow leopard landscapes include many features that require the development of special management plans for effective and integrative conservation and economic development:
| The landscapes include Protected Areas as well as large tracts of habitat that lie outside PAs in multiple-use zones. |
| Snow leopards are landscape species and their populations will not be effectively conserved unless conservation efforts take place beyond PA boundaries. |
| Snow leopard landscapes provide essential ecosystem services,including clean water for a third of world’s human population from the riversthat originate here and therefore, conservation efforts cannot be restricted to within PA boundaries. |
| Snow leopards and associated biodiversity continue to co-exist with local human communities who have rich and unique pastoral cultures and ways of life. |