1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:05,430 If if the magic of technology is serving us well, I think we're live now. 2 00:00:05,430 --> 00:00:12,120 So while I can't see any of you, I believe that a large number of people that have joined us, 3 00:00:12,120 --> 00:00:22,110 this is the second of two recent presentations coming out of our natural governance programme at the Martin School. 4 00:00:22,110 --> 00:00:28,260 Some of you are with us to hear John Vucetich just a few weeks ago and the difference 5 00:00:28,260 --> 00:00:33,880 between that very splendid talk and the equally splendid talk we're going to have now. 6 00:00:33,880 --> 00:00:38,490 We're going to illustrate to you the breadth of our programme in this case. 7 00:00:38,490 --> 00:00:42,420 I think my opening thought is that times have changed. 8 00:00:42,420 --> 00:00:52,660 There was a time when there were plenty of really talented field biologists undertaking field ecology and trying to use it for conservation. 9 00:00:52,660 --> 00:01:01,770 And it's a delight that Mohammed, who you're just going to hear from, Dr. Mohammed Virginia, is one of those talented field men. 10 00:01:01,770 --> 00:01:13,440 But the way that times have changed is that nowadays that grit and talent and natural history skill in the field is not enough. 11 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:20,130 We need people who can take those data, interpret the concepts, the biological concepts behind them, 12 00:01:20,130 --> 00:01:24,870 but more particularly lead them to practical application on the world stage. 13 00:01:24,870 --> 00:01:32,220 And it's that spectrum of skills that you're about to hear Mohammed brings to to us today. 14 00:01:32,220 --> 00:01:37,260 So what's going to happen next is that Mohammed is going to share his screen. 15 00:01:37,260 --> 00:01:41,280 Magic will be done and [INAUDIBLE] make his presentation. 16 00:01:41,280 --> 00:01:48,090 And afterwards we'll all rejoin the conversation and have the opportunity to ask him some questions. 17 00:01:48,090 --> 00:01:56,070 If you want to ask a question, please write it in the ask a question tab and I'll try and decipher them at the end. 18 00:01:56,070 --> 00:02:03,270 I would say, having done this a few weeks ago, that it makes it difficult when people's questions are really very long and complicated. 19 00:02:03,270 --> 00:02:09,360 So if you can make them quite crisp, that that will ease me through the chairman there anyway. 20 00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:16,000 Mohammed, it's a pleasure to have you here. Let's hear about Leppard's mountains and politics. 21 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:17,740 Thanks, David. 22 00:02:17,740 --> 00:02:27,340 I'm super excited to give this talk and thanks to all walks of modern school for having me here, so I presume you should be able to see my slides. 23 00:02:27,340 --> 00:02:32,230 Is that right? We can see them. OK, so now I'm the second one. 24 00:02:32,230 --> 00:02:38,650 The second one. So let's start with a story. A few years ago, I received a text message. 25 00:02:38,650 --> 00:02:46,960 I was sitting in my office in Oxford and the message was about this one, which you perhaps can see on this short video. 26 00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:52,600 And it was a leopard coming down from the valleys into the Rangers call. 27 00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:57,100 And the Rangers initially found it quite cool because she was close to the call. 28 00:02:57,100 --> 00:03:03,250 And then they found that there should be a problem because she's she she has some sort of lack of consciousness. 29 00:03:03,250 --> 00:03:07,840 So the idea was that, well, we need to capture and put it in a zoo. 30 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:13,550 And then the animal was sent to a local zoo in order to make sure that she would be fine. 31 00:03:13,550 --> 00:03:21,940 But the problem was that she was far away from being fine, because you can see here immediately after translocation to a local zoo, 32 00:03:21,940 --> 00:03:28,450 the animal is fed by hand from the local vet and there is no sense of fighting. 33 00:03:28,450 --> 00:03:33,460 It seems that. So in that way, what happens? What's that? 34 00:03:33,460 --> 00:03:40,510 It seems that the animal was not really good. So none of the vets were really hopeful that the animal could make it and to survive. 35 00:03:40,510 --> 00:03:47,590 And I was thinking, well, we have some sort of unknown disease and it's it's a high density population of the leopard. 36 00:03:47,590 --> 00:03:51,970 So what will what will happen for this leopards? Every day we have a new threat. 37 00:03:51,970 --> 00:03:54,200 We have a new problem. We have a new challenge. 38 00:03:54,200 --> 00:04:01,870 Is there any hope we can have for the future of these animals and perhaps other quite a city in West Asia and the Middle East? 39 00:04:01,870 --> 00:04:06,550 So look at this map. This is the range of the leopards across the border, Africa and Asia. 40 00:04:06,550 --> 00:04:16,840 So in Asia, they are not doing well, especially in the Middle East, where you can see the great many of the former range of the leopards lost. 41 00:04:16,840 --> 00:04:22,210 Just 16 percent of the historic range is now occupied by the leopards. 42 00:04:22,210 --> 00:04:31,050 So that's another gloomy idea that the habitat is not also too much available anymore, the disease habitat. 43 00:04:31,050 --> 00:04:36,340 Now we have all challenges. Just look at the amount of terrorist attacks for the past couple of decades. 44 00:04:36,340 --> 00:04:42,790 You can see the hotspots on the map and it's not far from the range of the Persian leopards in the Middle East. 45 00:04:42,790 --> 00:04:47,710 So they are they need to cope with a combination of different challenges. 46 00:04:47,710 --> 00:04:52,780 And it's also a challenge for the conservationists wanting to work on those landscapes. 47 00:04:52,780 --> 00:05:02,790 So I would focus my study here just between the two hotspots in northern Iran and the area, which is called Corridor Transboundary Region. 48 00:05:02,790 --> 00:05:08,770 It's shared between Iran and south Turkmenistan in north and partially Afghanistan. 49 00:05:08,770 --> 00:05:14,860 So it's one of the safest place to think about leopards and perhaps conservation. 50 00:05:14,860 --> 00:05:22,660 So we started using camera traps. The camera traps are some sort of technology which take a photo of any animal passing by. 51 00:05:22,660 --> 00:05:28,120 So it enables us to understand how many leopards or any other animals which have some sort of 52 00:05:28,120 --> 00:05:34,030 distinguishable marking to identify their numbers and individuals and estimate the population. 53 00:05:34,030 --> 00:05:39,160 So shockingly, we were surprised to see such a high density of leopards in that area. 54 00:05:39,160 --> 00:05:47,380 So it's a small area. So the area, it's just the three hundred fifty square kilometre and it's about six to one hundred square kilometres. 55 00:05:47,380 --> 00:05:51,070 It scored one of the highest density the anywhere in Asia. 56 00:05:51,070 --> 00:05:58,210 So it's perhaps just part of India has such a high density or perhaps no other region in Asia. 57 00:05:58,210 --> 00:06:01,750 So that news became outrageous. 58 00:06:01,750 --> 00:06:11,410 It went under cover of cover page of a number of newspapers, including this one that there are thirty five leopards detected in this national park. 59 00:06:11,410 --> 00:06:18,040 And the question was, is that possible? Can you expect such a high density of leopards and such a small mountainous area? 60 00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:26,860 And this sports event? Frankly speaking, it was a question for me how we can accommodate such a high density of leopards in tiny national park, 61 00:06:26,860 --> 00:06:30,940 surrounded by too many villages and pastoral communities and people on roads. 62 00:06:30,940 --> 00:06:37,960 How is that possible? Well, to do so, first, we need to understand how they behave in terms of movement. 63 00:06:37,960 --> 00:06:42,610 Where are their home? Ranges will be six leopards with satellite collars. 64 00:06:42,610 --> 00:06:49,690 And it took us three years and we found, yes, there is a huge range for each of these leopards. 65 00:06:49,690 --> 00:06:54,160 And they have they each of them are confined to some to to a specific area, 66 00:06:54,160 --> 00:07:01,030 which is called home or territory or they are not similar, but they have different levels of usage. 67 00:07:01,030 --> 00:07:08,190 And then. We found, unsurprisingly, a huge Holmgren's for each of the leopards on average, 68 00:07:08,190 --> 00:07:13,200 each level, each male was in an area of about one hundred square kilometre. 69 00:07:13,200 --> 00:07:15,780 And then it added to the confusion. Why? 70 00:07:15,780 --> 00:07:22,980 Because they study of the area of three hundred fifty two kilometres and then each homology up around one hundred square kilometres. 71 00:07:22,980 --> 00:07:30,810 So we were thinking about thirty five leopards. So how is that possible with this, with such a high spatial requirement. 72 00:07:30,810 --> 00:07:34,620 You can't have such a high density because the leopard needs space. 73 00:07:34,620 --> 00:07:39,240 They can kill each other. They push each other off from the national park. 74 00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:42,870 But the let's let's ask the data. 75 00:07:42,870 --> 00:07:51,240 We found that most of the time for each leopard is spent in a tiny portion of that huge area, which is called the core area. 76 00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:56,790 The core area is about 30 square kilometres. It's 30 percent of that huge range. 77 00:07:56,790 --> 00:08:02,700 So in that way, the leopards are able to share space between each other. 78 00:08:02,700 --> 00:08:07,020 They are able to share the whole range, but not the core, the core area. 79 00:08:07,020 --> 00:08:15,150 So in that way, they would be able to share to share space across such a small mountainous landscape. 80 00:08:15,150 --> 00:08:19,230 And the amount of overlap between the neighbours was about 40 percent. 81 00:08:19,230 --> 00:08:23,160 So basically they are sharing the home range, but not the core area. 82 00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:28,770 So let's look at what is happening inside the core area. Well. 83 00:08:28,770 --> 00:08:32,760 Food, 90 percent of the kills are made inside the core area. 84 00:08:32,760 --> 00:08:39,060 So basically what is happening is that leopards are a low, moderate overlap with the neighbours. 85 00:08:39,060 --> 00:08:44,220 But had they had they enjoy exclusive hunting areas, which is actually the core area. 86 00:08:44,220 --> 00:08:47,280 So they do not share that hunting area with the neighbours, 87 00:08:47,280 --> 00:08:53,550 but they allow the others just to meander around them for that long as they are not killing and you prey. 88 00:08:53,550 --> 00:09:03,600 So in that way, we would think, well. We can have a high density of the liberals because although they have large spatial requirements, 89 00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:13,380 but at the same time most of the time and predation is confined to a tiny portion of that huge area, and that way we can accommodate larger numbers. 90 00:09:13,380 --> 00:09:20,640 Well, that wasn't all. There was more exciting lessons to learn, and it was simply because it's mountings. 91 00:09:20,640 --> 00:09:30,480 So this is one of the base camps. I spent 20 nights waiting for the letters to to pop in to pop up in one of the trucks. 92 00:09:30,480 --> 00:09:33,270 They never showed up, sadly, for that 20 days. 93 00:09:33,270 --> 00:09:43,890 And we we went back home with frustration and disappointment after 20 nights of no, no, no fire, no more healthy water, no no shower, 94 00:09:43,890 --> 00:09:54,060 nothing but sitting in front of my tent every day, I was able to see ahead of these animals one of the prey, bizarre goat. 95 00:09:54,060 --> 00:09:59,760 And they were able to they appeared in the morning just on this ridgeline in front of the camp, 96 00:09:59,760 --> 00:10:04,320 and they started grazing down the valley all the way down the valley. 97 00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:11,910 All the way down there, which there was a misprint, and after having some time there grazing around, 98 00:10:11,910 --> 00:10:18,150 they went back all the way back up to the region and then disappeared. And this amount of time was about four or five hours. 99 00:10:18,150 --> 00:10:25,860 I was thinking, well, if what happened, if I had the collar on one of these animals and what I was able to see was that, 100 00:10:25,860 --> 00:10:30,570 well, they had some tiny movement around a point, not too much. 101 00:10:30,570 --> 00:10:38,730 Well, they were not really active in the morning. This is what I could suggest, Judge, based on the colour, because it's just on X and Y axis. 102 00:10:38,730 --> 00:10:41,100 But there is a third dimension. 103 00:10:41,100 --> 00:10:50,100 They have spent lots of time moving downward, then upward, spend lots of energy and they have been very active for the whole morning. 104 00:10:50,100 --> 00:10:59,290 So I was I was not able to detect that movement because simply I was ignoring the third dimension, which is the altitude and. 105 00:10:59,290 --> 00:11:04,060 And that brought us more exciting understanding about leopards. 106 00:11:04,060 --> 00:11:11,680 So imagine here, this is a mountain, obviously, and this is me with one of my colleagues searching for a laboratory. 107 00:11:11,680 --> 00:11:15,970 And each leopard has its own range. 108 00:11:15,970 --> 00:11:22,210 But at the same time, we realise that each leopard is killing prey on a different altitude. 109 00:11:22,210 --> 00:11:27,310 So each one is two hundred metres higher or lower than the neighbours. 110 00:11:27,310 --> 00:11:28,330 So in that way, 111 00:11:28,330 --> 00:11:39,070 they are not they are not excluding others from their hunting areas or basically the core areas they are specifying into specific altitudes. 112 00:11:39,070 --> 00:11:43,030 So in that way, they are able to have more separation from their neighbours. 113 00:11:43,030 --> 00:11:48,940 And that was simply something which we ignored because we treated mountains like they are open plains. 114 00:11:48,940 --> 00:11:54,790 And if we consider this third dimension into the calculation and quantification, 115 00:11:54,790 --> 00:12:05,880 what would happen is that we are if we do not consider the third dimension, we would lose thirty five percent of the spatial requirement. 116 00:12:05,880 --> 00:12:11,530 We basically we have we will have an underestimation of this space that the they need for their life. 117 00:12:11,530 --> 00:12:19,030 So that's a key message. The message is that we shouldn't treat mountains like open plains. 118 00:12:19,030 --> 00:12:23,980 The third dimension is an opportunity. It brings lots of heterogeneity in the landscape. 119 00:12:23,980 --> 00:12:31,270 It enables us to share the landscape more efficiently in a way that do not interact with each other. 120 00:12:31,270 --> 00:12:35,020 But at the same time, they are working on different altitudes in those landscape, 121 00:12:35,020 --> 00:12:42,910 which we can see a huge step of gradient of altitude in a small area. 122 00:12:42,910 --> 00:12:46,990 But it's not only about the ecology, it's also about the planning as well. 123 00:12:46,990 --> 00:12:51,280 We simply ignore the altitude in planning as well in spatial planning. 124 00:12:51,280 --> 00:12:58,000 So here we can see five different types of pray for deliverance from the left right. 125 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:03,250 You can see domestic dog shaped white peaks and then the union and those are goats. 126 00:13:03,250 --> 00:13:13,300 But this is the exciting thing. The wild trees are killed on a higher altitude about four hundred metres higher than the other ones. 127 00:13:13,300 --> 00:13:17,440 Wild wild pigs are everywhere. They are throughout villages as well. 128 00:13:17,440 --> 00:13:24,790 But considering sheep and domestic dog, they are killed on a lower elevation on the lower altitude. 129 00:13:24,790 --> 00:13:28,510 So what would happen is that when we want to try the donation, for example, 130 00:13:28,510 --> 00:13:35,410 we want to put livestock somewhere while someone else and it's mostly done on a supply or any metric surface. 131 00:13:35,410 --> 00:13:41,740 But ignoring the third dimension or actually the altitude is not really helpful because we can now understand. 132 00:13:41,740 --> 00:13:52,180 Well, the altitude also matters a lot because we can zone on an elevation of gradient between between different individuals or within the populations. 133 00:13:52,180 --> 00:13:55,940 So that's that's the other exciting thing. 134 00:13:55,940 --> 00:14:06,070 Well, we understood we learnt about the leopards and how mountains provide an amazing opportunity for the leopards to share the landscape. 135 00:14:06,070 --> 00:14:11,080 Even small mountainous landscape can harbour in this way high density of the leopards, 136 00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:17,020 which is important because we know that the protected areas and national parks in mountainous landscapes are not very big. 137 00:14:17,020 --> 00:14:23,410 It's not like southern African national parks. But you can we have hundreds of thousands of kilometres as protected area. 138 00:14:23,410 --> 00:14:27,670 Many of them are just tiny, small, just a few dozens of square kilometres. 139 00:14:27,670 --> 00:14:36,100 So in that way, there are still a huge opportunity for conservation because they can enter a population of these animals in high density. 140 00:14:36,100 --> 00:14:44,590 And those ones, obviously, some of them would go beyond the national parks boundaries, but they can survive within even those smaller areas. 141 00:14:44,590 --> 00:14:49,720 Obviously, if you always go for the larger ones that spotted, what, many times we can't. 142 00:14:49,720 --> 00:15:00,910 So I think there's there's opportunity there. But apart from the ecology, what we realised was that there is transboundary movement. 143 00:15:00,910 --> 00:15:06,340 Two of the Lepper two out of the six coloured Leprince, they spent the home ranges across the border. 144 00:15:06,340 --> 00:15:16,630 They went from Iran into Turkmenistan. So and sometimes it was on a daily basis killing a prey on the Iranian side, resting on the Turkmen side. 145 00:15:16,630 --> 00:15:22,810 And then you have this type of population or individuals in this case which are shared between two countries. 146 00:15:22,810 --> 00:15:28,510 And you need to make sure that both countries are doing well, law enforcement legislation, public support, 147 00:15:28,510 --> 00:15:35,350 everything is doing well because otherwise you have one individual which is protected, properly protected in the morning and in the afternoon. 148 00:15:35,350 --> 00:15:40,390 He or she could be prone to any threats like poaching or anything else. 149 00:15:40,390 --> 00:15:46,840 So that was a concern or perhaps an opportunity we will see later. 150 00:15:46,840 --> 00:15:51,950 So we looked at the map of the leopard across Asia. 151 00:15:51,950 --> 00:16:01,700 And we realise that it seems that there are not many countries which harbour more than five hundred liquids across the continent is perhaps just Iran, 152 00:16:01,700 --> 00:16:06,410 India, Sri Lanka or perhaps China. Not to not not many countries. 153 00:16:06,410 --> 00:16:14,570 So many Asian countries harbour just this small and tiny population, sometimes down to just a handful. 154 00:16:14,570 --> 00:16:23,590 So. We focussed on four subspecies which are critically endangered or endangered, basically, they are treated. 155 00:16:23,590 --> 00:16:32,980 And they are they are the Persian language from the west to the east, the Arabian leopard s Chinese and the amul in Russia and China. 156 00:16:32,980 --> 00:16:42,340 So these four subspecies were the focus of the next study. And there is a huge amount of evidence out there showing the presence and 157 00:16:42,340 --> 00:16:48,110 movement of this leopards across these transboundary areas like from top right. 158 00:16:48,110 --> 00:16:53,230 I can see an Arabian leopard in Yemen, not far from the Oman border on the left. 159 00:16:53,230 --> 00:16:57,010 That is a Persian leopard in the Caucasus in Azerbaijan. 160 00:16:57,010 --> 00:17:03,940 And the name Putin there, which could be potentially from a land mine or snares or whatever or down below. 161 00:17:03,940 --> 00:17:10,030 You can see the amul leopard in Russia, not far from the Chinese border or the other ones. 162 00:17:10,030 --> 00:17:17,940 So there is an evidence out there and it's not. Just a few, there are many, there are lots of evidences. 163 00:17:17,940 --> 00:17:27,330 So what we realised was that for 18 out of twenty three countries where these animals persist, 164 00:17:27,330 --> 00:17:30,660 the majority of the leopard, which is just along the border, 165 00:17:30,660 --> 00:17:38,340 basically they are not there are not too much habitat left inside those countries, which means that, well, the leopard, 166 00:17:38,340 --> 00:17:45,450 the Asian leopard are like a like a border species and they are confined and limited to these borderlands. 167 00:17:45,450 --> 00:17:49,560 So you can see, for example, in Southeast Asia, it's mostly around the border, again, 168 00:17:49,560 --> 00:17:58,410 for the amount of leopard in which Russia and China and perhaps North Korea is exactly the same for the Arabian ones as well. 169 00:17:58,410 --> 00:18:06,900 So it's like a border species and the range is shared between the countries which they need to protect together. 170 00:18:06,900 --> 00:18:13,770 So what types of services these these transboundary areas can provide for the leopards? 171 00:18:13,770 --> 00:18:24,090 Well, one is connectivity and movement. So, for example, in this example, you can see two green population nuclease operation leopards in Iran. 172 00:18:24,090 --> 00:18:29,670 And what Iran should be happy that, well, the liberals are doing well. 173 00:18:29,670 --> 00:18:39,810 I don't need any collaboration. But at the same time, the connexion between these green patches are gone through Azerbaijan, the neighbouring country. 174 00:18:39,810 --> 00:18:45,840 So in that way, without having the international collaboration, without having the neighbours partnership, 175 00:18:45,840 --> 00:18:53,610 even within the entire population, inside the country, could be scattered, could be fragmented and eventually go extinct. 176 00:18:53,610 --> 00:19:02,580 So that's one way that we need to make sure that movement and connectivity is happening, sometimes just beyond the border, back into the country. 177 00:19:02,580 --> 00:19:05,220 And the other one is recovery. 178 00:19:05,220 --> 00:19:14,490 And as in the case of Russia and China, you can see both for the annual report on the Amazon Tiger that they are making a comeback from Russian fight. 179 00:19:14,490 --> 00:19:24,660 And these yellow red patches show that they are coming back from Russia into China and spreading the wrench into the Chinese territory. 180 00:19:24,660 --> 00:19:35,380 So that's another way that having the international collaboration and transparency movement can help the countries to to recover the population. 181 00:19:35,380 --> 00:19:43,600 But there is always a challenge with speaking about borders and military activity and armed conflict, that's that's a huge problem. 182 00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:51,970 You can see the amount of the human violence of armed conflict for the last few years, and many of them are happening in those borderlands. 183 00:19:51,970 --> 00:19:55,960 And incidentally, Democrats are also there. 184 00:19:55,960 --> 00:20:05,020 So that makes things much more complicated for not only the Pentagon, for people who wants to do some sort of conservation action. 185 00:20:05,020 --> 00:20:12,250 The other one is neighbours have different priorities or different levels of legal protection, so. 186 00:20:12,250 --> 00:20:20,920 For example, in the case of Thailand, they sought to protect a leopard in 1960, but not until 1994. 187 00:20:20,920 --> 00:20:27,580 Cambodia and Myanmar announced the leopard as protected for thirty four years time lag between the two 188 00:20:27,580 --> 00:20:34,180 countries that could have that would have a hampering effect on leopard conservation and survival. 189 00:20:34,180 --> 00:20:38,530 So that's one way or the other case, which is for the Arabian leopard. 190 00:20:38,530 --> 00:20:46,840 You can see here, Oman, nineteen seventy six. It announced the leopard as a protected species, but not until very recently. 191 00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:50,980 Saudi Arabia and Yemen, they started to protect the leopards. 192 00:20:50,980 --> 00:20:57,880 So you can see a leopard starting in one country is protected by popping up into the neighbouring country. 193 00:20:57,880 --> 00:21:06,100 It can be shot without any persecution. There's no law to to to be enforced unless there is proper law enforcement. 194 00:21:06,100 --> 00:21:10,030 So these time bugs can affect the leopard conservation. 195 00:21:10,030 --> 00:21:17,410 And it's it's one of the challenges for the animals. We have also an emerging challenge. 196 00:21:17,410 --> 00:21:23,050 And there is a number of border fences and barriers between countries. 197 00:21:23,050 --> 00:21:26,650 In the case of this leopard, which was collared in Iran, 198 00:21:26,650 --> 00:21:35,200 it started to disperse from Iran into Turkmenistan and eventually it was bounced in and bounced back to into the border fence, 199 00:21:35,200 --> 00:21:38,140 which wasn't on the treatment side. So it is coming. 200 00:21:38,140 --> 00:21:44,710 And when when a border fence could stop a leopard, it could stop anything because the leopards can climb everywhere. 201 00:21:44,710 --> 00:21:51,130 They can pass everything they are. They aren't just agile and very capable of passing many barriers. 202 00:21:51,130 --> 00:21:54,760 But if there is a border fence, which would stop them, that's a huge problem. 203 00:21:54,760 --> 00:22:01,750 That's a huge challenge for them. And the other one, which is an emerging challenge, is the Belt and Road Initiative. 204 00:22:01,750 --> 00:22:07,090 So belt and road initiative, as many of you are aware of, is a road which is coming out. 205 00:22:07,090 --> 00:22:12,640 It has it's a it's a it's a sea road and also land road. 206 00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:21,280 The landlord is started from China and affecting perhaps over 60 countries in the war going from Central Asia into the Middle East, 207 00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:30,010 Turkey and eventually to to Europe. So the road could be good for local economy, hopefully. 208 00:22:30,010 --> 00:22:36,030 But there is a challenge. It goes through some of the best habitats for leopards. 209 00:22:36,030 --> 00:22:40,020 It's such a high density of these animals that you can see six, four, 210 00:22:40,020 --> 00:22:45,270 eight individuals over one hundred square kilometre, not only the first, but also Bronner's. 211 00:22:45,270 --> 00:22:50,250 And you can see again, such a high density of Brown was in the Caucasus region. 212 00:22:50,250 --> 00:22:59,100 So what is the problem at the moment? Nothing. But people living in these areas with such a high density of these animals, 213 00:22:59,100 --> 00:23:05,640 they suffer lots of conflict and they sometimes try to retaliate to kill them. 214 00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:16,740 It's illegal everywhere for all these animals. But when you have this sort of Bahri, it could bring some potential customers into the market, 215 00:23:16,740 --> 00:23:21,280 which people would ask from these local people, OK, shoot a leopard, Austenland. 216 00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:28,650 But I would pay you. And in that way, the God that the herder or the local people would get rid of the leopard and at the same time would be paid. 217 00:23:28,650 --> 00:23:33,660 So to do all the incentives. So that's that's, that's, that's a potential danger. 218 00:23:33,660 --> 00:23:38,910 And if it was what happened in parts of Latin America for the Jaguars as well. 219 00:23:38,910 --> 00:23:45,930 So that's the concern for the future, that this road could not only affect the fragment, the connectivity of the habitats, 220 00:23:45,930 --> 00:23:56,040 but also at the same time affecting the population through increasing the poaching and illegal wildlife trade. 221 00:23:56,040 --> 00:24:00,240 So what we can do, we can't protect everyone. We don't have that much money. 222 00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:07,940 There are thousands of kilometres of border land where the weapons are there. But let's focus on five key areas and those five key areas. 223 00:24:07,940 --> 00:24:14,010 So from the up from the east to the west is between Russia and China, 224 00:24:14,010 --> 00:24:21,600 which already there is an ongoing project between Thailand and Myanmar for the for the vote in the 225 00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:27,540 Chinese leopard and then between Oman and Yemen and finally in the Caucasus and cooperation between Iran, 226 00:24:27,540 --> 00:24:35,610 Turkmenistan and Armenia. These are the countries which have a higher number of these transponder literate population 227 00:24:35,610 --> 00:24:42,690 and are important for making sure that this transponder movement would persist. 228 00:24:42,690 --> 00:24:51,000 The good news is that still two of them and two of them have ongoing projects in the Caucasus and also between Russia and China. 229 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:58,710 So three more needs some sort of action. But we all know that some countries are not happy with each other. 230 00:24:58,710 --> 00:25:05,400 They don't talk to each other. And transboundary partnership essentially lies in part in collaboration and talking to each other. 231 00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:13,620 So is that the end of the road? No, there is there is another way which is not as effective as multilateral collaboration, 232 00:25:13,620 --> 00:25:17,820 but it can still help and it's in unilateral transboundary contribution. 233 00:25:17,820 --> 00:25:21,690 What does that mean if countries are not happy to talk to each other? 234 00:25:21,690 --> 00:25:29,310 For example, as in the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, they can do their own share, which is each one can protect protected protected species, 235 00:25:29,310 --> 00:25:32,940 can increase the number of protected areas, increase the law enforcement, 236 00:25:32,940 --> 00:25:38,190 and it can be done under an umbrella of international organisations like Intel, for example. 237 00:25:38,190 --> 00:25:46,080 In that case, it's WWF Caucasus. So in that way, each one is doing its share and the leppard's could potentially be recovered. 238 00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:51,960 So, for example, in this case, you can see a leopard which move between the two countries, one hundred seventy kilometre. 239 00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:59,580 And so it's possible to think about a unilateral transboundary conservation as long as each country is doing 240 00:25:59,580 --> 00:26:06,720 its commitment and its contribution well enough to make sure that the animals could just pass the border. 241 00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:18,590 So that's one way. The other implication for policy is that we need to make sure that monitoring is done jointly. 242 00:26:18,590 --> 00:26:27,800 So imagine you have a shared population and you have one leopard in one side of the border counted, one then going to the other side counted again, 243 00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:34,460 and eventually we would come up with a number which is inflated, which is overestimation when we think the population is doing well, 244 00:26:34,460 --> 00:26:39,110 which is not doing well because we have overestimated and it's not realistic. 245 00:26:39,110 --> 00:26:45,950 So, for example, in this case between China and Russia, they have this amazing project of counting leopards together. 246 00:26:45,950 --> 00:26:51,860 And whenever they started to separate the data that it yielded 20 percent over 247 00:26:51,860 --> 00:26:59,120 estimation than what should be counted as a combined approach between Russia and China. 248 00:26:59,120 --> 00:27:09,020 So we need to make sure that monitoring are some sort of are done in a collaborative ways between the companies and the government. 249 00:27:09,020 --> 00:27:17,210 Well. So far, I talked about the leopards and how mountains are important for the leopards, 250 00:27:17,210 --> 00:27:21,170 even though they are small of the national park or protected areas, 251 00:27:21,170 --> 00:27:27,380 but the heterogeneity provides amazing opportunity for these animals to to try to survive. 252 00:27:27,380 --> 00:27:29,420 And then what are the challenges? 253 00:27:29,420 --> 00:27:38,420 Because they need lots of space in terms of moving into countries and spanning across the country means that they need to collaborate. 254 00:27:38,420 --> 00:27:42,950 Obviously, there are challenges, but it's not only about the leopards. 255 00:27:42,950 --> 00:27:52,910 Is these transboundary areas where conservation also important for for the biodiversity as a whole was just for the leopards. 256 00:27:52,910 --> 00:28:04,070 Let's see if you figured this is what countries were supposed to actually what the world is supposed to achieve by the end of last year, 257 00:28:04,070 --> 00:28:12,020 2020, which is called Achutan target 11, 17 percent of the land to be protected by 2020. 258 00:28:12,020 --> 00:28:17,630 And you can see that except Latin America and the Caribbean, the others are underperforming, 259 00:28:17,630 --> 00:28:22,400 including Asia, and they are still far from the 17 percent. 260 00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:27,710 Asia is about 13 percent to four percent away from the target. 261 00:28:27,710 --> 00:28:38,120 So now countries are joining together this year to sign another agreement to achieve 30 percent of the land to be protected by 2030. 262 00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:48,110 And in this simulation, you can see that if countries in Asia are different parts of Asia, if you focus on the red red lines, 263 00:28:48,110 --> 00:28:55,880 if they keep the current trend, it's unlikely that any of them would achieve that 30 percent white, 20, 30. 264 00:28:55,880 --> 00:29:06,200 And they need to increase at least two times the rate of increase of the protected areas if they want to make it happen by 20, 30. 265 00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:15,320 Well, in a continent where we have over 60 percent of the world population, where we have one of the highest rate of land, 266 00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:25,640 the conversion to agriculture and where we are supposed to have a larger number of humans in the next 40 or 50 years, how is that likely? 267 00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:29,190 Not too much. 268 00:29:29,190 --> 00:29:39,600 But Borderlands can still provide an opportunity because 80 percent of the Earth's border hotspots for transplanted wildlife are in Asia. 269 00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:45,420 So Asia still has the opportunity to think about, well, inside the countries we want. 270 00:29:45,420 --> 00:29:51,780 I mean, there are not too much space, but along the borders, there might be some opportunity just to fill that gap. 271 00:29:51,780 --> 00:30:00,570 Obviously, we need to go for other options like lands. We don't want to protect everywhere as national forests strictly protected area. 272 00:30:00,570 --> 00:30:10,980 There are other options like India, lands are governed by indigenous people or non-governmental areas. 273 00:30:10,980 --> 00:30:19,670 So in that way, one one option would be to think about transboundary areas more robustly and is to the mind. 274 00:30:19,670 --> 00:30:29,940 The Cabinet has recently shown if we consider for each Asian country, how much is the connectivity across the border or internally? 275 00:30:29,940 --> 00:30:37,980 And there is a huge difference and protected areas or more connected across the border rather than inside the countries. 276 00:30:37,980 --> 00:30:43,920 So it's not only about increasing the amount of land that's protected areas or to achieve that 30 percent. 277 00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:48,630 It's also about the quality because those lands could be much more connected, 278 00:30:48,630 --> 00:30:55,420 which is something it's crucial to make sure that the wildlife could survive and persist for the next. 279 00:30:55,420 --> 00:31:00,430 A couple of centuries or forever, so that's important to think about. 280 00:31:00,430 --> 00:31:07,750 Well, this this is transboundary areas are important to provide an opportunity to fill the gap. 281 00:31:07,750 --> 00:31:14,340 Well, if you still wonder about what happened to the leopard horseshit, which I. 282 00:31:14,340 --> 00:31:19,470 Initially introduced there, there is a good, good news for the animal. 283 00:31:19,470 --> 00:31:27,510 So for those of you who joined us, not from the beginning, it was a leopard which was captured in northeastern Iran in a national park. 284 00:31:27,510 --> 00:31:35,720 You can see. And she was translocated to a local local zoo because she was not doing well, 285 00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:43,760 and you can see here that she had no sense of fighting, just hand fed and without any aggression. 286 00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:50,240 And nobody was hopeful that the animal could make it the animal to survive. Well, the good news is that she was good. 287 00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:55,850 She was recovered after four months of treatment and eventually she was released back into Dubai. 288 00:31:55,850 --> 00:32:01,130 And after four months, she was part of the gang and she was doing well. 289 00:32:01,130 --> 00:32:05,990 So that's that's a happy it's a happy ending for for this leopard. 290 00:32:05,990 --> 00:32:10,610 So with this happy ending, I would like to thank all the collaborators, 291 00:32:10,610 --> 00:32:21,200 colleagues and friends who helped to help pay for this series of studies for the last couple of years and more importantly, 292 00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:29,870 the Oxford Martin School and the Department of Zoology, in particular, David MacDonald, for supporting me and having me here. 293 00:32:29,870 --> 00:32:35,970 And thank you for listening. Thank you. 294 00:32:35,970 --> 00:32:46,440 Thank you, Mohammed. And I think that everybody is now back with us and at least on my screen, I can see you, that was a wonderful talk. 295 00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:53,940 And of course, what's exciting about it is you went from individual insights or insights into individual animals, 296 00:32:53,940 --> 00:33:00,570 even that nice story of the rescue through to wide geopolitics. 297 00:33:00,570 --> 00:33:10,110 I should have said at the beginning, I suspect a lot of people in the audience grew up with the idea that while lots of big mammals, 298 00:33:10,110 --> 00:33:13,140 lots of big carnivores in trouble are in trouble, 299 00:33:13,140 --> 00:33:20,940 leopards are somehow an exception thought of as being so adaptable to the sort of equivalent of red foxes in the UK that can live anywhere. 300 00:33:20,940 --> 00:33:25,260 And we know about the the urban leopards in big Indian cities. 301 00:33:25,260 --> 00:33:35,220 So I suspect it would have come as quite a shock to some people in the audience to see just how badly leopards are doing in Asia. 302 00:33:35,220 --> 00:33:44,040 And I should mention that amongst our colleagues, for example, we have just recently and it's tragic, 303 00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:51,570 documented in camera trapping studies, the disappearance of the lost leopards remain protected area in Laos. 304 00:33:51,570 --> 00:33:59,430 And we have colleagues at this moment, right at this moment, documenting what may be the demise of the lost leopards in Cambodia. 305 00:33:59,430 --> 00:34:07,590 So so the remarkable results you've shown for Iran and some of those transboundary areas really are bucking a trend. 306 00:34:07,590 --> 00:34:15,180 And if if people didn't fully perceive it, they should realise that we're now looking at this extraordinary, 307 00:34:15,180 --> 00:34:20,790 charismatic animal being confined to just a few tiny places in in Asia. 308 00:34:20,790 --> 00:34:29,430 So, Mohammed, the key thing that comes out of your work is the importance of these transboundary areas. 309 00:34:29,430 --> 00:34:35,580 And so many leopard populations that do survive are in those transboundary areas. 310 00:34:35,580 --> 00:34:45,090 Just say a little bit more to us about what it is about those areas that makes them suitable for the leopards. 311 00:34:45,090 --> 00:34:50,550 Is it something about the areas themselves or something about the absence of people in those areas? 312 00:34:50,550 --> 00:34:56,280 The combination of the two. What can we learn from that? Yeah, that's a good question. 313 00:34:56,280 --> 00:35:04,320 I think the there are a number of factors which has come to have contributed to this to this situation. 314 00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:12,900 One is it seems that countries are more happy to spend money for development inside the countries not far that far in the borders. 315 00:35:12,900 --> 00:35:22,050 So in that way, while there are still intact areas left along the borders and the other one is in some cases, we have military conflicts. 316 00:35:22,050 --> 00:35:29,880 And when you have these border issues, border disputes or military conflict between the governments or countries in that way, 317 00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:37,650 nobody would go there to invest in development. So still, there are lots of habitats left and some leopards could survive the situation. 318 00:35:37,650 --> 00:35:47,130 But at the same time, I think it could be in a way, you thought that the year each country started to announce the protection. 319 00:35:47,130 --> 00:35:55,020 So I think some countries were more able to protect the leopards that they provided a source for the other ones and the other ones, 320 00:35:55,020 --> 00:36:03,390 even though they lost the leopard inside those countries, like, for example, many Caucasian countries, not much lost, but not too much left, 321 00:36:03,390 --> 00:36:08,070 they were able to disperse or recover from the Iranian side or between the Russia and China. 322 00:36:08,070 --> 00:36:12,660 Each they show the recovery from the threat from the Russian side. 323 00:36:12,660 --> 00:36:22,560 So this imbalance between protection was helpful for the neighbouring countries just to think some some leopards in their territory. 324 00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:26,560 But it's still I think it's there is no general rule. 325 00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:35,730 It's very context dependent. But the good thing is that there are some habitats out there like supporting animals along the borders. 326 00:36:35,730 --> 00:36:37,080 Thank you, Mohammed. 327 00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:44,700 I think now we should move to the questions that people have been leaving in the chat and there's a lot of them and I can see that those questions, 328 00:36:44,700 --> 00:36:51,360 some of them are about biology and some of them are about the geopolitics of of of leopard conservation. 329 00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:56,790 But the very first one I feel I have to give pride of place to is to our colleague 330 00:36:56,790 --> 00:37:02,520 in the world who is marvellously for this occasion named Flora Leopard. 331 00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:09,510 So in honour of her surname, resonating so strongly with your talk, I'm going to make her question the first. 332 00:37:09,510 --> 00:37:19,980 And it's a biological one. She says, I'm thinking of the altitude, more separation that was such a major part of your discoveries. 333 00:37:19,980 --> 00:37:23,940 Was there a relationship between sex and altitude? 334 00:37:23,940 --> 00:37:28,180 For example, there's one sex before higher altitude to the others. 335 00:37:28,180 --> 00:37:38,010 Yeah, that's a good question. We compared this one in a in a in a system with only males because we were so keen to understand. 336 00:37:38,010 --> 00:37:45,270 We knew that this interaction between males could be very aggressive. So we wanted to know if males are excluding each other or not. 337 00:37:45,270 --> 00:37:51,270 And we didn't. We have we had only one young female in our sample size, which probably is about logic, isn't it? 338 00:37:51,270 --> 00:37:59,640 But we have five males, which at the same time call it all adult primates, or they were sharing the whole national park between each others. 339 00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:03,600 And we were able to understand how this altitude sports between them. 340 00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:09,070 But for females or females and males, we don't know yet. Very good. 341 00:38:09,070 --> 00:38:12,580 And now to jump to a completely different scale of question, 342 00:38:12,580 --> 00:38:20,680 this one from Amy Fitzmaurice and a lot of other people have voted, as it were, for this question. 343 00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:25,010 You you point out to us the importance of these transboundary areas. 344 00:38:25,010 --> 00:38:27,790 And so now we know that's what matters. 345 00:38:27,790 --> 00:38:38,800 But what can we do and what can be done to improve transboundary conservation, which presumably by its very nature, is extremely challenging. 346 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:44,140 So what practical steps do you think could realistically be taken? 347 00:38:44,140 --> 00:38:53,200 Yeah, so I think one way is to focus on those five key areas which are extremely important, 348 00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:59,530 and without them we would lose a couple of countries in terms of leverage. 349 00:38:59,530 --> 00:39:04,120 So that's the spatial planning on our side, which as conservation is. 350 00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:10,450 What I think is that this collaboration between the scientists and biologists is crucial between the neighbouring governments. 351 00:39:10,450 --> 00:39:15,340 And it happens a lot that it goes through international treaties or convention. 352 00:39:15,340 --> 00:39:19,870 So one example is the Convention on Migratory Species, which is part of the union, 353 00:39:19,870 --> 00:39:28,810 and that's the key example for this sort of migratory or nowadays transboundary species, which is very helpful. 354 00:39:28,810 --> 00:39:33,850 So that's why countries are able to sit together, plan together, share the data, 355 00:39:33,850 --> 00:39:40,030 develop joint monitoring programme, and then decide together what and how should be protected. 356 00:39:40,030 --> 00:39:47,890 So that's one way and the other one. Finally, I think it's important to let the countries know that the situation of the animals 357 00:39:47,890 --> 00:39:52,030 call the central governments how they cope with these transboundary things, 358 00:39:52,030 --> 00:39:58,060 because many of them are obviously focussing on their own territory as a country. 359 00:39:58,060 --> 00:40:02,670 But the leopards. No, no, no, no, no border. 360 00:40:02,670 --> 00:40:04,420 They are just moving between the border. 361 00:40:04,420 --> 00:40:12,760 So it's important to let them know that if we are doing some sort of fencing along our border wall or whatever or any development, 362 00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:21,760 it can potentially affect populations. And our populations, not the neighbours, can potentially affect our populations as well. 363 00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:28,020 Good, and to continue jumping back and forth between questions about big scale and small scale, 364 00:40:28,020 --> 00:40:33,030 people are fascinated to know about that sick leopard taken into captivity. 365 00:40:33,030 --> 00:40:38,510 And then very luckily, we have militated. 366 00:40:38,510 --> 00:40:44,780 Did you ever find out what the pathogen was? Yes, it was I mean, 367 00:40:44,780 --> 00:40:49,970 initially it was supposed is keen on December because there was a high prevalence 368 00:40:49,970 --> 00:40:54,020 of Cain undisciplined distemper in the local box and that was the concern. 369 00:40:54,020 --> 00:41:01,790 But later on, it was not it was negative for the Cain on and then it was found in bacteria in the plot, 370 00:41:01,790 --> 00:41:08,840 which I am not fully aware of, what was the exact name? But it was a bacteria which was high at high level. 371 00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:17,570 And then they went through some sort of treatment and eventually she showed some sort of aggression consciousness and was able to go back to the one. 372 00:41:17,570 --> 00:41:22,670 But yeah, I think at the end, people were thinking at this stage that, well, 373 00:41:22,670 --> 00:41:30,590 the animal looks fine and it seems that there is no major threat to the animal because in terms of distemper or rabies or whatever. 374 00:41:30,590 --> 00:41:34,280 So they decided, well, it's not good anymore to keep it in captivity. 375 00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:42,860 Let's just bring it back into the water. And then she was released and luckily she was spotted again after four months. 376 00:41:42,860 --> 00:41:55,550 Very good. So now back to policy, Akash Gurung has asked a very popular question about what initiatives and policies are being implemented 377 00:41:55,550 --> 00:42:03,770 in Iran by the government as a result of your findings and to to try and conserve the weapons. 378 00:42:03,770 --> 00:42:10,190 Well, the CMW, a combination of migratory species, recently announced the leopard as part of this programme, 379 00:42:10,190 --> 00:42:18,080 which is which provides more support for transboundary conservation and collaboration between the countries and the Persian leopard, 380 00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:26,810 was one of the recent one, at least so along with a couple of other scholars in Iran as well as neighbouring countries. 381 00:42:26,810 --> 00:42:34,800 We were able to put and draughted a proposal which eventually just ended up that the leopard was able to. 382 00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:36,810 The to receive more support. 383 00:42:36,810 --> 00:42:47,700 So now it's so now it's at this stage that there are some collaboration, there has to be started between Iran, Turkmenistan and other countries. 384 00:42:47,700 --> 00:42:54,660 There is a peace park, which was not based on my study about this and the whole thing that me and several other colleagues, 385 00:42:54,660 --> 00:42:58,710 they were telling that this transparency movement is an important thing for 386 00:42:58,710 --> 00:43:03,750 the left and the peace park is established between Iran and Armenia in order. 387 00:43:03,750 --> 00:43:07,240 Not necessarily. Very good. 388 00:43:07,240 --> 00:43:12,940 And actually, that blends into a question from our colleague, Isha, 389 00:43:12,940 --> 00:43:20,110 and he mentions peace talks and says more generally, do you think peace talks have an important role to play? 390 00:43:20,110 --> 00:43:29,380 Yeah, I'm definitely I think with the rising amount of conflict and disputes the seen amongst Asian countries 391 00:43:29,380 --> 00:43:35,500 and more and higher number of people in coming years to be born and leaving those countries, 392 00:43:35,500 --> 00:43:39,550 I think struggling for natural resources would be inevitable. 393 00:43:39,550 --> 00:43:48,730 So these peace bogs or transboundary areas of water can also not only serve the animals to have more land protected for them 394 00:43:48,730 --> 00:43:59,170 and also also to serve people in order to just have peace in a way to promote peace and sympathy between people as well. 395 00:43:59,170 --> 00:44:11,020 So now an ecological question, people are interested to know whether there's another rare field in Iran is the cheetah. 396 00:44:11,020 --> 00:44:15,280 Is there any overlap between the cheetah and the leopards? 397 00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:20,620 Any competition between is one perhaps a problem for the other? 398 00:44:20,620 --> 00:44:26,050 Yet there are a few areas in which both occur in the same area. 399 00:44:26,050 --> 00:44:32,020 And interestingly, a few years ago, two cheetahs were collared in Iran, 400 00:44:32,020 --> 00:44:39,820 essentially one and one of them was killed by another leopard, by a leopard, which at the same time he was also cornered. 401 00:44:39,820 --> 00:44:43,060 So the guy that the cheetah was killed. 402 00:44:43,060 --> 00:44:51,760 But it seems that it's not a huge problem because most of the cheetah range does not have leopards nowadays in Iran. 403 00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:58,420 So it seems that we need to seek for more human caused problem for the cheetahs. 404 00:44:58,420 --> 00:45:04,840 Now, so back to back to the geopolitics, Alyona asks, 405 00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:15,880 Do you see any solutions to the problem of those border fences which are so impenetrable defences that are there because governments want them there? 406 00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:27,470 Is that simply something you could do nothing about? Well, when I saw that letter dispersing from Iran with the cheapest colour, I was thinking. 407 00:45:27,470 --> 00:45:32,030 Don't go to Turkmenistan because you are taking my Jeep, my my guitar, 408 00:45:32,030 --> 00:45:41,330 and when went into Turkmenistan and bounced to the to the border fence and found, well, the animal was bouncing back towards Iran. 409 00:45:41,330 --> 00:45:49,880 So I found, well, if a fence could stop a leopard, what we can do for the other animals and it seems are countries like Turkey. 410 00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:54,440 They're spending loads of money on having proper walls and border fences. 411 00:45:54,440 --> 00:46:01,670 And so I think that was an example between I guess it was Mongolia and China which did remove the 412 00:46:01,670 --> 00:46:08,490 fence as part of this border just for the better movement of ungulates by coolants or ghazals. 413 00:46:08,490 --> 00:46:12,830 But I think that was an extreme example for many other places. 414 00:46:12,830 --> 00:46:20,780 I don't know how we can remove the fences without compromising the governance and the sovereignty of the countries. 415 00:46:20,780 --> 00:46:30,230 It might be able to use the technology in the future to detect some that the trespass, but not the animals. 416 00:46:30,230 --> 00:46:33,460 So hopefully technology would find a way. 417 00:46:33,460 --> 00:46:41,540 But it seems that countries are really doing well in terms of establishing and creating good walls, border fences. 418 00:46:41,540 --> 00:46:53,250 There you go. Now, Mohammed, I know that you've worked on a different topic, which is aspects of human wildlife conflict involving leopards. 419 00:46:53,250 --> 00:46:57,420 And so we asked a question about that. 420 00:46:57,420 --> 00:47:01,110 Perhaps you could comment a little bit on on human wildlife conflict, 421 00:47:01,110 --> 00:47:07,500 but also possibly ask the question, is there a perverse outcome round the corner? 422 00:47:07,500 --> 00:47:14,920 Because if you are doing well, conserving these leopards, is there going to be a greater conflict problem? 423 00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:20,320 So so I'm not sure if I answered the question very well, can I say it again? 424 00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:31,300 Well, firstly, maybe you could talk a little bit about your work on human wildlife conflict involving the leopards, any depredation on the coast. 425 00:47:31,300 --> 00:47:43,840 The second question was, if the leopards become more numerous, is that going to cause a second set of problems with them being more problematic to. 426 00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:53,310 Good question. So for the first one, when we call our six leopards, only one of them was engage in serious human wildlife conflict. 427 00:47:53,310 --> 00:48:00,190 Look at people. And actually, it was a very old male tooth were almost gone. 428 00:48:00,190 --> 00:48:08,950 And he killed 15 dogs. He was a dog lover and he killed 15 dogs in in one year, along with a couple of sheep, 429 00:48:08,950 --> 00:48:14,890 so and goats so and he was great in stealing dogs from people just going to the 430 00:48:14,890 --> 00:48:19,800 villages thinking like going to the grocery and nobody was able to detect him. 431 00:48:19,800 --> 00:48:27,790 He was very careful. But the rest, the other five, they never committed any any any conflict. 432 00:48:27,790 --> 00:48:34,330 So it brought the idea that, well, we have a population. People think about what these leopards are killing our animal. 433 00:48:34,330 --> 00:48:38,140 But eventually it's not the whole population. It's just one individual or two. 434 00:48:38,140 --> 00:48:45,730 So that's the ideal problem. Individuals which are killing disproportionately in terms of the number of animals. 435 00:48:45,730 --> 00:48:53,350 But going to the next question. Well, yes, I think if when we look at the map of the protected areas, 436 00:48:53,350 --> 00:49:00,460 we have conflict more or less in places where we have the leopards, where we have where we have protected the leopards. 437 00:49:00,460 --> 00:49:08,470 So conflicts somehow could be a product of conservation in a way, because in that way we are protecting animals, 438 00:49:08,470 --> 00:49:11,590 getting older and they need they need to leave their territory hungry. 439 00:49:11,590 --> 00:49:16,870 So they go to the people and the livestock and eventually they think the cost problem. 440 00:49:16,870 --> 00:49:20,680 So having more leopards, yes, it can provide more problems. 441 00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:27,610 But I think what is needed is not having more or less that is just a breeding population which is actually 442 00:49:27,610 --> 00:49:35,900 stable or not showing huge fluctuation across the time that causes any concern about the survival. 443 00:49:35,900 --> 00:49:39,970 Very good. So here's here's an interesting question that Matt Matt, 444 00:49:39,970 --> 00:49:53,270 Matt Lucky has asked Have economic studies assessed direct or indirect financial values of the protected areas covering the territories? 445 00:49:53,270 --> 00:49:58,970 And depending on what you say, Mohammed, I'll explain what Matt has in mind. 446 00:49:58,970 --> 00:50:11,060 It's a longer question. Yeah, OK. So I think the most important thing is the direct interaction of. 447 00:50:11,060 --> 00:50:15,140 Leopards and people, which has financial concern for people. 448 00:50:15,140 --> 00:50:21,590 So that's one aspect that we need to have more financial studies from the people's perspective. 449 00:50:21,590 --> 00:50:27,950 And at the same time, we need to understand fight there the conservation spending, 450 00:50:27,950 --> 00:50:33,590 which is amongst the other types of financial study of how much how much money we are spending 451 00:50:33,590 --> 00:50:40,880 for these lands in terms of protection or having people excluded sometimes in national parks. 452 00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:46,850 So that's why we need we need to understand about different types of the ecosystem in a way that fine. 453 00:50:46,850 --> 00:50:49,260 How much financial each one costing. 454 00:50:49,260 --> 00:50:56,860 So I can think about this, the whole conservation and also human wildlife conflict in terms of these these two things. 455 00:50:56,860 --> 00:51:06,580 OK, so so just to give you a sense of what he was thinking about is that if economic studies 456 00:51:06,580 --> 00:51:13,330 had estimated the financial values of those protected areas that covered the territories, 457 00:51:13,330 --> 00:51:19,090 then a mechanism for conservation, he says very nicely. 458 00:51:19,090 --> 00:51:31,240 Finance the landscape, protect the leopard, could be sovereign, green and green bond markets that could offer a mechanism to finance the the goals. 459 00:51:31,240 --> 00:51:35,050 So that's a topic to be developed, I think. Yeah. 460 00:51:35,050 --> 00:51:46,140 Yeah, that's a nice idea. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I'm just looking for our next question, though, um. 461 00:51:46,140 --> 00:51:54,360 So Herculaneum Marina asks again, considering the importance of Borderlands for conservation. 462 00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:59,550 Do you think there are enough international initiatives? 463 00:51:59,550 --> 00:52:03,330 And of course, funding inevitably for transboundary conservation. 464 00:52:03,330 --> 00:52:09,900 I mean, have have enough people cottoned on to the results that you've been coming up with and done something about it now? 465 00:52:09,900 --> 00:52:16,660 Yeah, I think yeah. That we don't have enough resources. 466 00:52:16,660 --> 00:52:23,680 For this transponder thing, because I think most of the time it should come from international donors, 467 00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:27,700 particularly because each country is not really helpful to help the other one, 468 00:52:27,700 --> 00:52:32,290 because each of them are reliant on their own already limited resources. 469 00:52:32,290 --> 00:52:36,940 So that's a problem because they need to pitch the idea to international donors. 470 00:52:36,940 --> 00:52:41,860 And it's already it's not too much money in the market for conservation. So that's one problem. 471 00:52:41,860 --> 00:52:49,090 But I think what the case of Armenia, Azerbaijan showed is that the unilateral transboundary conservation, 472 00:52:49,090 --> 00:52:54,760 which is well, if you don't want to collaborate with your neighbour, just protect what you have, what you have. 473 00:52:54,760 --> 00:53:03,940 And what if you have this target of protecting 17 percent or 30 percent, just protect and make sure that some of them are not from the border. 474 00:53:03,940 --> 00:53:09,580 So in that way, animals would find a way just to move across the border. It has its own drawbacks. 475 00:53:09,580 --> 00:53:12,940 Like we are not monitoring together. We are not sharing the data. 476 00:53:12,940 --> 00:53:22,390 But at the end of the day, animals will find some ways to connect it in a way to just to have this transponding movement. 477 00:53:22,390 --> 00:53:32,470 But I'm quite agree. We don't have too much money and resources for this in this new era of conservation and transparency conservation. 478 00:53:32,470 --> 00:53:36,520 So I'm I've got another question for you before we get to it. 479 00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:43,000 I meant to make a public announcement, as it were. At this point, I think people are looking at their screens. 480 00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:48,220 We'll see to the bottom of the screen screens a questionnaire which is an opportunity 481 00:53:48,220 --> 00:53:54,710 to fill in in the closing minutes of this talk or immediately afterwards. And the reason it's there is that we were fortunate, 482 00:53:54,710 --> 00:54:02,680 Mohammed was fortunate to get a grant from the university looking at public engagement with research. 483 00:54:02,680 --> 00:54:06,310 And you, the audience, have just been engaging with Mohammed's research. 484 00:54:06,310 --> 00:54:14,350 And so the people organising that initiative and the university are very keen to get your reactions to what you've heard today. 485 00:54:14,350 --> 00:54:24,670 So please, I think it's a short, quick question to see if you can just fill it in while we're in the last moments of of this seminar. 486 00:54:24,670 --> 00:54:28,120 So, Mohammed, there's a question which may be our last one. 487 00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:31,930 We've only got five minutes left before we all turn into pumpkins or something. 488 00:54:31,930 --> 00:54:33,760 Dramatic happens on the iting. 489 00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:44,380 And it's a question from Amy Fitzmaurice, and she's very interested to know more about the attitudes of the local people to these leopards. 490 00:54:44,380 --> 00:54:54,480 Do they regard them positively or negatively? And is the work to be done in terms of public perceptions about the. 491 00:54:54,480 --> 00:55:05,070 So leopards are sympathetic with wolves and wolves kill more from people, so people are more angry with the wolves and what less to the leopards? 492 00:55:05,070 --> 00:55:12,130 But we realise that even people. Who are losing more animals to the wolves? 493 00:55:12,130 --> 00:55:20,710 They tend to be more negative toward the leopards as well, which means that people have financial concerns no matter who is killing their animals. 494 00:55:20,710 --> 00:55:25,720 They would be mad at any animal which is causing a problem. 495 00:55:25,720 --> 00:55:31,930 So in a as a as a single species, if we consider the leopard are doing well, we are happy. 496 00:55:31,930 --> 00:55:34,930 But when we consider it as a context of sympathy, 497 00:55:34,930 --> 00:55:42,980 carnivores in the field of carnivores killing more devils are affecting the people's attitude towards the leopards. 498 00:55:42,980 --> 00:55:47,380 If they kill more people are getting more negative towards a leopard does not. 499 00:55:47,380 --> 00:55:53,320 So that was an interesting thing we realised from working with people around those habitats. 500 00:55:53,320 --> 00:56:01,210 Very good. And Mohammed, do you think that you could within two and a half to three minutes, 501 00:56:01,210 --> 00:56:11,240 give an answer to Justin about how climate change might shift the altitude or situation of those Leppard's? 502 00:56:11,240 --> 00:56:17,630 Yeah, we expect that animal to start to move upward in the mountains. 503 00:56:17,630 --> 00:56:24,170 So that's that's what we heard from from the media and also the papers. 504 00:56:24,170 --> 00:56:28,820 What would happen is that it seems that leopards would be more condensed in terms 505 00:56:28,820 --> 00:56:33,470 of having less altitude available because people would also come up for this. 506 00:56:33,470 --> 00:56:38,450 So they have less areas available because they can't fly. They can still stick to the peaks. 507 00:56:38,450 --> 00:56:43,670 So in that way, it seems that we we might expect more interaction, 508 00:56:43,670 --> 00:56:50,810 more interspecies interaction between the leopards because they can't share anymore in that way as they are doing now. 509 00:56:50,810 --> 00:56:59,230 So that's one way. The other one is prey also could be more mixed, like Eurail and Baesler goats. 510 00:56:59,230 --> 00:57:04,070 So there are two types of prey which are somehow some sort of niche segregation. 511 00:57:04,070 --> 00:57:10,310 So in that way, the euro would go into the virtual gold habitats more and more. 512 00:57:10,310 --> 00:57:19,730 And because they are pushed from downward. And then in that way, what would happen is that there is competition between the two species, 513 00:57:19,730 --> 00:57:29,690 which might which might affect the survival of any for both of them and might reduce the number of available prey for the long term as well. 514 00:57:29,690 --> 00:57:34,160 And eventually speaking about people coming apart. 515 00:57:34,160 --> 00:57:40,000 It seems that more livestock and more more dogs also want more domestic animals 516 00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:43,610 would be available for the leopards in the future because of the climate change, 517 00:57:43,610 --> 00:57:49,700 because they should go up first in order to find more fresh pastures for their animals. 518 00:57:49,700 --> 00:57:55,610 And the leopards aren't there. So there would be a higher chance to for human wildlife conflict. 519 00:57:55,610 --> 00:58:00,950 But all of these are just speculations just based on what we think now. 520 00:58:00,950 --> 00:58:06,500 And I don't have any empirical evidence to prove any of this. 521 00:58:06,500 --> 00:58:12,770 And I think Justin's question about the methods and it might apply have a different answer in different areas. 522 00:58:12,770 --> 00:58:18,470 For example, in the Himalayas or something is a very general one for for high altitude species. 523 00:58:18,470 --> 00:58:22,490 Just thinking of of of our own groups work. 524 00:58:22,490 --> 00:58:28,910 Ethiopian wolves are probably going to have to travel north, maybe off the top of the mountain tops to oblivion. 525 00:58:28,910 --> 00:58:33,770 As agriculture moves up hillsides, Arctic foxes have been documented, 526 00:58:33,770 --> 00:58:41,550 moving higher and higher up mountains as red foxes are able to move behind them, pushing them forward. 527 00:58:41,550 --> 00:58:47,330 So it's a general phenomenon. Mohammed, thank you. This has been such an interesting session. 528 00:58:47,330 --> 00:58:56,240 And I think a key thing to say to the audience just before we all to speak figuratively in our private spaces, you would hear us, 529 00:58:56,240 --> 00:59:05,450 but we'll be doing it, is that there was a time when biology seemed to be all that you needed to understand to deliver conservation. 530 00:59:05,450 --> 00:59:10,820 But we now understand that biology of which you've done a lot is necessary but not sufficient. 531 00:59:10,820 --> 00:59:17,780 You need to look much more broadly at topics involving the human dimension and as you've shown us, geopolitics. 532 00:59:17,780 --> 00:59:21,410 So thank you so much for an excellent talk. 533 00:59:21,410 --> 00:59:31,280 As I say, one of the the unsolved shortcomings of a meeting of this sort over a resume lending there it has 534 00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:36,860 been is that you can't hear the riotous applause that is now going on in houses around Oxford. 535 00:59:36,860 --> 00:59:40,910 And indeed, I can see from the people who've been here from around the world. 536 00:59:40,910 --> 00:59:48,380 But just imagine that applause. Thank you very much. And you magicians at the mountain school who've made all this work. 537 00:59:48,380 --> 00:59:50,008 So that's it.