Diverging Futures on the Roof of the World: Climate Change, Snow Leopards, and Pastoralists in Central Asia.

We used species distribution models to analyze the current and future distributions of snow leopards, their prey, and pastoralist - and how they overlap - for two large landscapes in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Spatial overlaps signal interactions and the potential for conflict.

Regionally diverging results under climate change: 1.more overlaps between snow leopards and pastoralism in the future Tajikistan 2.less overlaps and increasing spatial separation of wildlife and pastoralists in Kyrgyzstan

Context specificity matters! Even under the same climate change scenario in the same ecoregion, some landscapes will require conflict mitigation measures, while others will offer restoration opportunities.

See the full paper here: Ghoddousi, A., Eggers, J., Kirchner, K., Cornu, L., Kholmatov, I., Kubanychbekov, Z., Mirzoev, M. N., Sultanbaeva, K., Zhumabai Uulu, K., Baumann, M., Michel, S., Rosen, T., Sharma, K., Hofman, M. and Kuemmerle, T. (2025), Now leopards, prey, and pastoralists: Understanding the impacts of climate change on human–wildlife coexistence in Central Asia. Ambio(2025).