Leopards may be solitary, but leopard conservation doesn’t need to be done alone – in fact, conservation is more successfully achieved in collaboration. The Cape Leopard Trust (CLT) is no stranger to partnering with multiple organisations, landowners, and government bodies to promote coexistence between leopards and people in the Cape. However, seldom do we have the opportunity to learn from organisations working beyond South Africa’s borders and across the nine subspecies of leopard worldwide.
Leopards in the Cape have home ranges up to 10 times larger than those in the savanna biome of South Africa, and the suite of threats they face varies from leopards in other parts of the country. There are some similarities between leopards of the Cape and leopards in areas such as the Middle East and parts of Asia, where populations are also low or in decline. In addition, when designing and implementing solutions to mitigate the complex threats to leopards, the CLT believes that it is important to avoid ‘reinventing the wheel’ and to learn from methods tried and tested elsewhere. This up to now untapped potential to exchange knowledge with individuals and organisations researching and working with leopards globally, inspired the CLT to jointly plan the first Global Leopard Conference. Our hope is that this international gathering will create opportunities to enhance leopard conservation through collaboration. Conference organiser, Africa Massive, is well placed to coordinate the proceedings, with its extensive experience facilitating conservation conferences (including the successful virtual Wild Dogs United conference in February 2022).
The Global Leopard Conference takes place online from 13 – 17 March 2023 and will be hosted by an international partnership between the Cape Leopard Trust, Panthera, WildCRU, the Royal Commission for AIUIa, the Endangered Wildlife Trust, the WildCats Conservation Alliance, and the Arabian Leopard Fund.
The 5-day virtual conference will bring together organisations and individuals researching, observing, appreciating, and conserving the nine subspecies of leopard across the globe. The event, with an exciting line up of renowned keynote speakers, will provide a platform to share leopard lessons from around the world and to promote collaborative solutions to ensure the long-term survival of this ecologically important umbrella species. Topics will be relevant to researchers working across the broader carnivore community. This conference aims to engage with students, academics, scientists, conservation organisations, media representatives, artists, and leopard aficionados. We invite you to join us for fascinating leopard conservation conversations, interesting research, networking opportunities, and a lot of fun.
We invite abstracts to be submitted via the Submission Portal before Tuesday 1 November 2022.
Conference registration opens on Tuesday 15 November 2022.
