The 18th WildLife meeting took place on Tuesday 14th of October introducing the project “Building Capacity of protecting the Iranian Cheetah for the local villagers in Dilaman (also written as Deylaman) in Dolfak,Ghafghaz” by the Iranian Cheetah Society. A Conflict as decisive action for this assembly, led us to see differences in opinions of each influenced role taker in damaged ranches by the leopard. This project was at first believed to be an educational approach and also was defined to save the leopard in three villages located Deilaman in Dolfak region. Despite that, with investigations done the aim was changed to managing these Conflicts with collaborative steps to build capacity in these villages. This project that has been on track for two years, started by perceiving the lifestyle and community livelihoods and then the cow “damage” problem was in focus. Following that, with a general planning and effort to find the causes for the cow damage*, a set of solutions was collected so that can be an answer to diversity in the lifestyle and livelihoods.
The project team (Sima Babrqir, Sara Baqeri and Mahdi Soleymani) explained how during the process the target aim changed from the protecting the leopard to the damaged cow so that it could include all the villagers from all three villages as follows more connections in the area. On the other hand, Conflict with leopard can be a cause in the damaged cow problem as the lack of leopard presence decreases the number of Conflicts.
Forming discussions and a general schedule for reducing cow damage, acknowledging people with nature with the respect to each side’s rights on the cow damage issue, constructing people’s cooperation with governmental organs and enthsue the local potentials to reduce the cow damage and further procedures, were examples of results done in this project. This meeting was held with 32 people including interested and environmental experts in Iran Technical Publishing Co hall.
• Cow Damage refers to the cows or even other rangers killed by the cheetahs/ leopards and this problem is a major one, considering the fact that rangers are such an important strategic organs for the villages, as a result of that, the villagers always have had conflicts with cheetahs/leopards. There should be something done in order to separate the local carnivores from the rangers, otherwise these conflicts will lead to worse solutions.