The Iranian Cheetah Society celebrated the International Day for Biological Diversity in a one-day ceremony at Pardisan Nature Park, Tehran. The program included education theater and environmental games for children and short talks about the wildlife of Iran and Iranian carnivores. Additionally, the Society launched another ceremony on May 28.
The Iranian Cheetah Society runs conservation education workshops emphasizing awareness and understating of wildlife and human-wildlife coexistence. During the workshops, the Society teaches volunteer educators basic concepts about the Iranian wildlife, particularly large carnivores, their needs and importance, and their relationships to people and the environment.
The first workshop was held on May 13 and focused on an introduction to large carnivores of Iran, with 11 volunteers attended. Trained facilitators conduct the Society’s educator workshops throughout this year and are available to educators free of charge.
Iranian Cheetah Society launches a community-based project to engage local people with the nation-wide cheetah monitoring project in Iran.
Conservation of the Asiatic cheetahs in Iran has been the country’s most important conservation initiative during the past decade. Iranian Cheetah Society (ICS), together with Iran Department of the Environment and other NGOs, has focused its activities on research and conservation activities about the species. Yet, local people living in the cheetah habitats have rarely got involved in the past efforts. Involvement of local communities in conservation of endangered wildlife populations is known as an effective wildlife steward. Inspiring and enthusing local people for conservation of the cheetah and its habitats in Iran can gives new hope for long-term survival of the critically-endangered species in Iran.
ICS is now working on methods of local people’s engagement in cheetah conservation in some key reserve in central Iran. In the second year of nation-wide cheetah monitoring project, ICS seeks ground for this in Dareh Anjir Wildlife Refuge in Yazd province as a pilot site. ICS hopes this exercise provides critical information for a large-scale community-based project for conservation of Asiatic cheetahs in the third year of the cheetah monitoring program.
Iranian Cheetah Society hosted a one-day workshop about common plants in cheetah habitats in Iran. Majid Eskandari, author of “The Field Guide to Plants of Iran”, was the tutor of this workshop. Topics included in this workshop were: an introduction to cheetah habitats in Iran, the most common plants in cheetah habitats, a key to common plants in cheetah habitats in Iran, important plants for cheetah prey. This workshop was held as a series of the training workshops for the ICS’ researchers and members.
Iranian Cheetah Society (ICS) held a one-day poster design workshop focusing on environmental issues. The workshop was set up in the ICS’ head office in Tehran. Participants were thought from basics to more sophisticated techniques for poster design using advanced software. Each participant produced a poster at the end of the day based on what he/she had learned from the workshop. ICS aims to continue such capacity building activities for its members via short courses and workshops.
The second photography workshop training with the topic of “Premises and equipment of nature and wildlife photography” was held in ICS’s office on December 1st.
In this workshop lasting for 4 hours, the topics of the first workshop were followed, then Mr. Kaveh Farzaneh evaluated and commented on photos by participants and they worked on improvement on ways of seeing. The worshop was ended by a Q & A session.
The aim of the workshop was to increase knowledge and skills of the members in photography and understanding the basics to capture better photos of the nature and wildlife.
Simultaneously with the Children’s week, Morteza eslami the chief executive officer of the Iranian Cheetah Society with Massoumeh Ebtekar the head of Department of environment of Iran, attended to the child Labor school in state no.12 in Tehran and they narrated stories about cheetah for the kids.
As a part of the ceremony, with the aim of a tribute to Children’s week and to a special sort of Children of Tehran the Work Children, Morteza Eslami introduced the Iranian cheetah to the children. The CEO also told the present some memoirs of the Iranian cheetahs and why protecting these endangered creatures is such a matter.
In this conference, the head of environment of Iran on the behalf of the Government of Hassan Rouhani mentioned the impact of social organizations. “lately, a budget from the government is to be set to support these social enterprises and I hope that it gets official so that these organizations will be trustworthy and be supported by the law.” said Massoumeh Ebtekar.
She also said furthermore:” It is important to boost in protecting the WildLife and hopefully these improvements will be made by the corporations of Environmental societies, social organizations especially children and Iranian Environmental Department.” It is worth noting the tribute ceremony following the global children day, was held on October 2nd by Child Labor organization and Tehran’s Environmental Protection Society’s assist. The CEO’s assistant, the Deputy of CEO and the head of Tehran’s Environmental Protection Society and other staff were present as well.
Source: WildLife database -Iran Student Correspondent Association
The first Photography training workshop with the topic of “Premises and equipments of photography of nature and Wildlife” was held by solidarity of Avaye Arasban association.
In this workshop lasting of three hours and a half, the members of Iranian Cheetah Society, got to acknowledge the basics of photography, techniques to observe objects better, materials for photography and combinations in photography of nature. Also at the end of this workshop, Sir Kaveh Farzaneh answered questions of the audiences.
It should be noted the objective of this workshop was to gain the knowledge and improve members’ skills in the field of photography and introducing the basics in order to capture better pictures of the nature and the Wildlife and this will be done more frequently.
In recent years, the Iranian Cheetah Society has taken the opportunity to use sporting events (in particular the most popular sport in Iran, football) to educate the public about cheetahs and other wildlife in danger of extinction. Following recent cooperations with the Football Federation the Society took part in the education and training workshop of the second Football Festival for Schoolchildren. More than 500 schoolboys attended the festival where in addition to improving their football skills they learnt about cheetahs through games and educational activities.
At the end of “Capacity building of local communities to conserve Persian leopard in the Caucasus eco-region” project, a basket of solutions was designed to mitigate human- leopard conflict.
This basket contains solutions proposed by local people addressing the main roots of cattle depredation by leopard or other reasons caused damage to cattle in the target villages of project.
In these villages cattle are driven out of village for grazing in the forest and are often attacked by leopard, because herders do not have enough time to be with them. Therefore, it suggested that several families graze their cattle together intermittently so fewer herder are needed to be with cattle every day and cattle are less attacked by leopard. On the other hand, most of losses occur in the farm seasons that families are very busy. Accordingly, giving cattle during rice farming seasons to a person who stay with cattle in the forest is another solution that will be often paid by rice production.
Replacing existing cattle with hybrid type with higher meat and milk productivity, which can be kept mostly within corals, rather than pasturing in remote forests is the way to mitigate cattle loses by leopard or other probably damage.
Due to the high cost of buying hybrid cattle, the Artificial insemination of native cattle to have hybrid cattle is another considerable suggested solution.
When “the issue of cattle depredation” was analyzed with details, it was found that herding income is not sufficient for herders to spend fulltime on the care of cattle. So the possibility to launch a new job instead of herding or as a job opportunity in the forestwill lead in reducing the current conflict with leopard or help herders to spend more time on herding. Some of the desired are: mushroom production, beekeeping and worm compost.
In addition to the suggested solutions for the prevention of cattle losses, sharing enough information about existing livestock insurance program was proposed by local people asthe way to compensate financial losses.
In the last number of Dorfak Newsletter the possible ways of implementing these solutions were described through interviewing with local people who have successful experience in each of mentioned solutions. This basket with a diversity of solution provides the opportunity for each family to implement the most appropriate solution/s based on their complicated livelihood.
Postal Address: P.O.Box 14155-8549, Tehran, Iran
Office: Unit 2, Number 3, Jomhouri Ave, Tehran, Tehran Province
Whatsapp: +98 (935) 2450054
Email:
info[at]wildlife[dot]ir
