Hunting of wild animals and birds is a custom in Palas valley and practiced by almost every male for reasons such as income generation, meat and even leisure, including traditional. It is considered a privilege by the people of the valley. Besides wild ungulate and game birds, rodents and predators are also killed whenever encountered. Sometimes these animals are killed for no other reason than having a good shot. It would not be wrong to say that 90 % of male above the age of 12 years are occasional hunters.

Besides destruction of habitat through cutting of forest, grazing of livestock and clearing of land for agriculture, hunting of wild animals and birds is a major threat to some wildlife species. What can reduce this threat to wildlife in Palas valley? One right answer would be; nothing but a change in the attitude of the people towards wildlife. And what can change the attitude of the people? Many things, including awareness, increase of relative values of different components of biodiversity, and developing nexus of the development carried out in the valley with the conservation, one good example is that of Shandia.

Shandia is a veteran hunter living in village Mukchaki, a small village situated in the heart of the forest in upper Palas valley near Dombela. The forest harbor many wildlife species including wolf, fox, musk deer, koklass, monal and the endangered western tragopan. All these animals live in his ‘neighborhood’ and he rarely misses any opportunity to kill any animal or bird, which he comes across in the forest. He spends all of his time in the valley as he cannot come out of the valley due to enmities which potentially makes him more harmful to local wildlife populations. He has the skin of wolf, fox and black bear displayed in his Hujra and has sold skins of monal and tragopan pheasants.

PCDP-BDC staff held dialogues with him and other inhabitants of Mukchaki village and had discussions with them regarding the importance and role of forest and wildlife for the survival of human beings. He was quite right in putting forward the basic problems of the villagers to the project that provides an opportunity to develop a partnership between Shandia, his villagers and the project. This partnership and persuasion of the project brought a positive change in his attitude towards wildlife. Though bringing such a change in Kohistan and particularly Palas valley is a challenging task, only through persistent and sincere efforts can make many things possible and can change The Killer to Keeper like Shandia.

Shandia with his gun and skins of animals killed by him

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity and the optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty”. One needs to be an optimist to reduce the threats to biodiversity, which is a global concern. No doubt there are many difficulties in this field due to high dependency of the local people on natural resources and lack of awareness but persistent and sincere efforts guarantee a positive change.

BDC-Sector