Context:

On October 22nd, 2019, India for the first time held the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Program (GSLEP) at Delhi, under the aegis of the ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEF).

About

• The Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP):
• It seeks to address high-mountain development issues using the conservation of the charismatic and endangered snow leopard as a flagship.
• The GSLEP is a range-wide effort that unites range country governments, non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations, local communities, and the private sector around a shared vision to conserve snow leopards and their valuable high-mountain ecosystems
• The GSLEP is a high-level inter-governmental alliance of all the 12 snow leopard range countries.
• The snow leopard countries namely, India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Mongolia, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
• It majorly focuses on the need for awareness and understanding of the value of Snow Leopard for the ecosystem.
• The GSLEP Program (2019) was organized by the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change in New Delhi.
• The Steering Committee meetings of GSLEP are currently chaired by Nepal and co-chaired by Kyrgyzstan.

India: First Snow Leopard Survey

• The inaugural session of the 4th steering committee meeting of the Global Snow Leopard & Ecosystem Protection (GSLEP) Program also marked the launch of the First National Protocol on Snow Leopard Population Assessment, to mark the occasion of International Snow Leopard Day (23rd October).
• The first National Snow Leopard Survey of the nation has been developed by scientific experts in association with the Snow Leopard States/UTs namely, Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh. 
• The use of technology such as camera traps and scientific surveys will help to estimate the numbers.