Save Our Species – Central Asia

The project aims to set up a Save Our Species Central Asia initiative (SOS Central Asia) that will support the aim of the Convention on Migratory Species’ Central Asia Mammal Initiative (CAMI) to foster cooperation in Central Asian conservation. SOS Central Asia will achieve this by coordinating its activities with key elements of CAMI, such as Global Snow Leopard & Ecosystem Protection Programme, while leveraging the grant-making experience available within IUCN (Save Our Species, Integrated Tiger Habitat Conservation Programme). Given the current landscape of species related conservation funding in Central Asia, we propose to focus the areas for intervention through the SOS Central Asia initiative in a way that complements other IUCN-led and regional grant funding activities so as to optimise the return on investment and reduce duplication of efforts. For this first phase of the SOS Central Asia initiative, two target species were selected, the Goitered gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa) and the snow leopard (Panthera uncia), both listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. This choice reflects considerations about less-funded conservation of desert and semi-desert species and habitats, and about coverage of the two major ecosystems in Central Asia: mountains and arid lowlands. With SOS Central Asia, we propose to bring attention to these species and enhance conservation efforts by applying the SOS model. This first phase will result in 3 to 20 grants of 25,000 to 200,000 USD each awarded to conservation projects focusing on the target species and their habitats. SOS Central Asia will include parts of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, and will help attract additional funding and even new partners interested in joining forces.