CHANGING SPOTS
MONGOLIA

Mongolia's Snow Leopard Enterprises is an income-generation project that helps people living in poverty increase their standard of living, and at the same time protect their local ecosystems. They provide women across Central Asia with the training and equipment necessary to produce hand-made felt and other wool products, which are sold internationally through the Snow Leopard Trust and other venues. This provides the herding communities with an alternative income and helps to prevent the poaching of endangered snow leopards for survival. The Snow Leopard Enterprises project has been running in Mongolia since 1997. In that time it has grown to include over 350 households from 28 communities in seven different provinces of the mountainous west and desert south of the country.