Eco-camping program

The overarching aim of the eco-camping program is to empower children so that they can be actors of change and support snow leopard and wider environmental protection efforts.

More specifically they aim to increase knowledge and understanding of local ecology, promote positive attitudes towards snow leopards, a sense of pride and ownership among young people who learn to value the presence of snow leopards in the surrounding landscape.

 Experiential education camps, hosting children aged 12-13 years for 5 days, take place during the summer months.  They include active learning activities in snow leopard habitat areas, and focus on raising awareness about local biodiversity and landscapes and the need for conservation through exploration, discovery and team-building exercises.

Since 2013, the Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation and partners have implemented eco-camps in the Tost Tosonbumba Nature Reserve in southern Mongolia to promote community-based conservation efforts by educating school-aged children and their families about local wildlife.

In particular, the strategy aims to assist in:

• Enhancing conservation awareness, knowledge, values, motivations, opinions and aspirations amongst children within snow leopard habitats.
• Building skills that prepare children to collaboratively undertake positive environmental action.
• Creating opportunities and synergetic spaces for collaborative conservation action (decision making, behaviors, practice) amongst children in snow leopard habitats.