Both snow leopards and mountain communities are particularly sensitive to the increasing impacts of climate change.

Mountain communities in the Kyrgyz Ala-Too are reliant on agriculture and livestock rearing for their livelihoods. The same pastures used by the local community for livestock rearing are also used by the snow leopards. The Snow Leopard Friendly Honey Project is a collaborative project with local communities in the Kyrgyz Ala-Too Range to revive beekeeping practices, provide alternative income sources to local communities, and help buffer climate impacts. The local communities are also committed to snow-leopard friendly practices in the pastures. 20% of the profits from the sale of honey are used to fund ecosystem protection or conservation projects in the region.

This project aims to build the resilience of local communities to climate impacts while also integrating species and habitat conservation. The local community have agreed to put aside 20% of the profits from the sale of honey to fund snow leopard conservation projects in the region. In addition, they have also committed to protect their pastures for snow leopards through actions such as not engaging in hunting of snow leopard or any prey species, inform local rangers and the Snow Leopard Foundation (SLF) in Kyrgyzstan about cases of illegal hunting and hunting sites, inform SLF of any major infrastructural changes to the habitat or any new threats they might be aware of.

• Trainings are offered to people interested in joining the project. Trainings are offered by expert beekeepers from the local community.
• We provide initial equipment and beehives to start the project.
• We provide help with packaging, marketing, and distribution of the honey.
• We support local rangers to organise anti-poaching patrols
• We assist in livestock vaccination programs to prevent disease spread among livestock, and among livestock and wild herbivores.
• We support the pasture committee to help improve grazing practices in the region
• 20% of the profits from the sale of money will be used to fund conservation projects in the region. We support the community in identifying relevant conservation projects.