Presentation short abstract

The Champions Network supports locally rooted conservationists in mediating and initiating participatory conservation action.

Presentation long abstract

Conservation in the Indian trans-Himalayas involves complex, locally specific challenges shaped by variations in economy, polity, culture, animal behaviour, and ecology. These diverse conditions give rise to multiple pressures including changing land-use patterns, human–wildlife conflict, large-scale development, and accelerating climate change, that resist any ‘universal solutions’ approach. Climate change itself is increasingly understood as a ‘wicked problem’, a moment where competing values, and futures collide. In these ecosystems, such wickedness is intensified as local challenges entwine with global concerns, sitting at the cusp of unprecedented change. Addressing them requires plural perspectives. It needs scientific ecological knowledge in dialogue with indigenous local ecological knowledge, laying the foundation for a more convivial form of conservation.

Considering this, a network of “champions” from local communities across these fragile landscapes has been operationalised. Embedded in everyday life, these champions mediate, mobilise, and initiate participatory conservation action. The network seeks to reconcile divergent approaches by facilitating exchanges of knowledge, resources, and support across scales. Through mentorship of champions in Spiti and Kinnaur, including capacity-building workshops, documentation, and facilitating peer learning to support pilots of context-specific interventions on human–wildlife conflict and other local environmental priorities. They have also led nature education camps and activities with children. Notably, the work of one champion addressing human–bear conflict in Lahaul has improved local knowledge-sharing networks and was recently recognised through the Green Hub Conservation Grant.

Thus, the network functions as both; a mode of implementation and a form of inquiry, enabling innovative approaches to emerge from the ground up.