Co-designing conservation interventions through participatory action research in the Indian Trans-Himalaya

Community-based conservation, despite being more inclusive than fortress
conservation, has been criticized for being a top-down implementation of
external ideas brought to local communities for conservation’s benefit.
This is particularly true for Changpas, the pastoral people of Changthang
in trans-Himalayan India who live alongside unique wildlife. Our main aim
was to co-design conservation interventions through participatory action
research. We worked with two Changpa communities, to understand issues
faced by them. Subsequently, we co-designed context-sensitive
interventions to facilitate positive human-nature interactions. We did so
by integrating the PARTNERS (Presence, Aptness, Respect, Transparency,
Empathy, Responsiveness, Strategic Support) principles with the Trinity of
Voice (Access, Standing, and Influence). In Rupsho, we facilitated focus
group discussions (FGDs) led by the community. We found livestock
depredation by wildlife was primarily facilitated by the weather. This led
to co-designing of a new corral design which was piloted with seven
households, safeguarding 2,385 pashmina goat and sheep. Approximating the
value of each sheep/goat to be USD125, this intervention amounts to a
significant economic protection of USDc.42,500 for each household. This is
along with intangible gains of trust, ownership, and improved self-esteem.
In Tegazong, a restricted area adjoining the Indo-China border with no
previous research records, we worked with 43 Changpa people to co-create
research questions of mutual interest. Wildlife presence and reasons for
livestock loss were identified as areas of mutual interest.  The
herders suggested they would record data in a form of their choice, for
six months, while they live in their winter pastures. This participatory
community monitoring revealed nutrition and hypothermia to be a key cause
of livestock death. Subsequently, we delimited two previously untested
interventions: lamb cribs and provisioning of locally-sourced barley as
feed supplement. The wildlife monitoring recorded the first record of
Tibetan Gazelle Procapra picticuadata, outside of their known
distribution, in Tegazong. We aim to highlight the benefits of
co-designing projects with local communities that link research and
conservation, while also discussing the challenges faced. Ultimately, such
projects are needed to ensure ethical knowledge generation and
conservation that aims to be decolonial and inclusive.