Overview
- The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change publicly launched the Clouded Leopard Conservation Action Plan on Tuesday, Aug. 4, formalising it under the national Species Recovery Programme to give the species coordinated policy and funding support.
- The CAP identifies 14 priority conservation landscapes across Northeast India and directs habitat protection, corridor restoration and landscape-scale conservation to reduce fragmentation.
- The plan prescribes standardised scientific monitoring using camera traps, occupancy surveys, genetics and environmental DNA to produce reliable estimates of distribution and population over time.
- On the same day Meghalaya announced Mission Clouded Leopard as a state flagship programme and reported preliminary survey work in the Balpakram landscape that documented 21 individual animals, with wider state surveys and an action plan under way.
- The CAP links strengthened anti-poaching patrols, frontline capacity building and community-based livelihood support to address threats such as illegal hunting, prey loss and climate impacts and to enable transboundary cooperation with neighbouring range states.