Today, as the planet celebrates World Sustainable Tourism Day, Kyrgyzstan honors the snow leopard, or irbis, which has become a symbol of untouched nature, national pride, and a key to developing ecologically and socially responsible tourism for this country.
In many countries, including India, Mongolia, China, and Pakistan, snow leopard watching has become a popular ecotourism direction. Inspired by these examples, the Snow Leopard Foundation in Kyrgyzstan successfully implemented the project ‘Snow Leopard Tours – Key to Preserving Local Nature’ in 2023 with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The project became the basis for developing ethical tourism in the Sarychat-Eertash Nature Reserve. Training sessions were conducted for rangers and residents of nearby communities, and necessary equipment was purchased: from tents and yurts to solar stations and pack bags. All this allowed for organizing comfortable and ecologically safe conditions for observing wildlife.
Today, such tours take place from mid-autumn to the end of winter. Over two seasons after the project completion, about 10–12 groups (approximately 60–70 people) visited the reserve and adjacent border areas, including the Zhangart and Ak-Shyyrak gorges.
‘Unlike other nature tours, in our snow leopard tours, we consider the capacity of the reserve and local nature. The group size does not exceed six people, and the reserve is not visited by multiple groups simultaneously,’ notes Zhumabay uulu Kubanychbek, director of the Snow Leopard Foundation in Kyrgyzstan.
Since 2025, each tourist contributes $100 to the local community’s conservation fund. These funds support rangers, infrastructure development, and nature protection incentives. Under sustainable tourism flow, the contribution could reach seven thousand dollars per year – a tangible help for remote regions of the country.
Income from each tour amounts to three to four thousand dollars, with services provided exclusively by local residents: rangers, guides, cooks, and guesthouse owners.
It is important to note: this is about careful and non-intrusive observation of wild animals in their natural habitat. In such tours, tourists aim to capture rare shots of the snow leopard, as well as other predators – wolves, bears, Pallas’s cats, and large scavenger birds. Predators like wolves and foxes, previously considered ‘harmful’ in this area, have become valuable and attractive objects in the tours.
The tours have allowed the reserve to improve infrastructure while raising the level of service and tour costs. Rangers and local guides have become more experienced, and statistics show that the probability of seeing a snow leopard during a tour has reached 90 percent – a figure unique even by global standards.
