Thanks to the support of wildlife lovers and the financial backing of Raees Café and Sein Café, all the required budget to hire two rangers in the Miandasht Wildlife refuge has been raised.
These two persons will join the current official rangers in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge for six months to patrol and monitor the area.
Miandasht is one of the most sensitive reserves for the conservation of Asiatic Cheetahs specifically at the golden time of the year, namely, winter and spring when the reproduction of cheetahs is occurring. However, the entry of livestock and herder’s dogs threatens their situation. In addition, Yargholi, the known male cheetah of the reserve was killed in a road accident a few months ago. Therefore, the importance of increasing human resource and developing the protection plans of the area seem essential.
Iranian Cheetah Society hopes to continue the procedure with the help of those who concern to Iran wildlife and extend the contract of these ranges in the area.
The 5th Yahya Prize awarded three rangers in January 2019 to acknowledge the rangers who took particular steps for conservation in Iran. Yahya Prize funded by two members of the ICS, Mojtaba Ramzi and Paridokht Moskzad, an artist couple who dedicated part of their income to acknowledge the nature guards’ difficult job, and ICS holds this prize every year. Many legal and natural persons are interested in taking part in this event by supporting the awards or event’s costs.
These rangers had chosen by the committee of the jury formed of seven environmental activists, ICS members, and a former ranger. The winners were selected based on 14 principal parameters suggested by the juries. Every ranger is welcomed to apply for this prize independently and despite his grade and experience.
The winners of this year:
Ranger Ataollah Sadeqi from Kurdistan Province (Western Iran)
Ranger Ali-Akbar Imani Berenjestanaki from Mazandaran (Northern Iran)
Ranger Hamid-Reza Azimpour from North Khorasan (Northeastern Iran)
At the beginning of the event, the families of four rangers who got killed by poachers or passed away while their duties honored.
As a Yahya Prize tradition, one of the activists who try to take and specific action for rangers honored. Bahman Izadi is one of these heroes who dedicated himself to release the imprisoned rangers who are facing unclear penalty according to army conflict with poachers and due to the complicated legal system.
The training workshop on “Participation of local communities in the conservation of habitats and conflict resolution strategies between humans and wildlife” was held in the presence of experts of the Iranian Cheetah Society and at the invitation of the Department of Environment of Qazvin province in the governorate of Qazvin on 3 January 2019.
Many villages in Qazvin province, such as East and West Alamut, Tarom, etc., have less than amicable interactions (conflicts) with wild animals in the region such as leopards, wolves, bears, and boars. In light of this, the QazvinDepartment of Environment, by inviting experts from the Iranian Cheetah Society, made the effort to investigate these non-amicable interactions (conflicts) in this workshop attended by local community representatives to find solutions and strategies of resolution.
In this workshop, attended by the governorate authorities from all levels and authorities of the Islamic Councils of all villages in Qazvin province, issues were raised by the experts from the Association concerning cooperation and participation of the local communities in the conservation of the habitats.
In the end, it was decided for the experts of the Society to collect and compile all the information provided by local authorities in a report to be presented to the General Directorate of Department of Environment of Qazvin province to inform them of existing issues and adopted strategies by the indigenous communities.
During the stay of Vincent Van Der Merwe from Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) in Tehran, a workshop has been held to transfer the experiences of protecting the cheetahs in South Africa to the Iranian experts.
The presentation held in the Department of Environment and local DoE authorities, central DoE officers and NGOs attended in the meeting.
In this two days workshop, several subjects were discussed about the cheetah such as different approaches of conservation in the world, global experiences of ex-situ reproduction, metapopulation management in South Africa and the importance of ecotourism in conservation.
The Iranian Cheetah Society facilitated the holding of this workshop and translated the speech for the audiences and in fact, tried to gather the experts to share their ideas for a more effective conservation plan.
Vincent Van Der Merwe, a member of Endangered Wildlife Trust in South Africa and ICS’s experts were accompanied to visit one of the most important habitats of cheetahs. During this three days trip, an overall presentation was given about ICS’s projects and activities since 2001 in the area. Some of the main topics were the program of supplying water for cheetahs, repairing windpumps, a campaign for employing two rangers, surveying the impact of livestock presence in the area, and cheetah monitoring in Miandasht WR.
The visit accompanied by DoE’s managers, officers, and rangers of Northern Khorasan Province and Jajarm city.
We are grateful to translate and publish the Asiatic cheetah infographic poster in 14 languages with the help our international members and friends. The high-quality files are available to download in jpeg format in the following languages:
Persian, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Polish, Japanese, Russian, Turkish, Afrikaans
Please help us sharing the knowledge and raising awareness about the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah.
One of the most important habitats of the Asiatic cheetah is Miandasht Wildlife Refuge, where the production of the cheetah has already captured. The area is 84000 hectares wide with only eight rangers to protect it while the herds and guard dogs presence drives the cheetahs’ population to a risky status.
Eventually, in collaboration with the Department of Environment, a crowdfunding campaign has started to help us hiring two more rangers to improve the protection level of the area for the next six months.
Join us to save one of the most important populations of the cheetahs in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge.
ICS has received international donations through its partner, World Land Trust, a UK-based non-profit organization which is devoted to protecting the most biologically important and threatened habitats across the globe. So, if you prefer using an international payment gateway, please follow this link and mention “Rangers Program” in your “Message” field while donating. We will manually add your donation to the total raised fund in the campaign page.
If you wish to use an Iranian payment gateway please follow this link.
On Thursday evening, Yarqoli, the dominant male cheetah of Miandasht Wildlife Refuge that was captured several times by camera-traps died in an accident.
During the recent monitoring project in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge, the only cheetah captured by the camera-traps seemed to be the dominant male of the area. Based on the veterinarian review this cheetah was 6-8 years old when sadly got killed in road accident.
ICS will continue the Cheetah Monitoring Program within the protected areas hoped to find a new population or individuals very soon.
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
