While conservationist Kubanychbek Zhumabai uulu has long been enthralled by wildlife, little did he know he would eventually spearhead creative new initiatives to protect snow leopards and other

While conservationist Kubanychbek Zhumabai uulu has long been enthralled by wildlife, little did he know he would eventually spearhead creative new initiatives to protect snow leopards and other animals in Central Asia. Now the director of the Snow Leopard Foundation in Kyrgyzstan and Kyrgyzstan’s coordinator of the Snow Leopard Trust, Kubanychbek aims to spread the success of these practices with other communities so that they may conserve their wildlife populations while also lifting their own socioeconomic statuses. Kubanychbek Zhumabai uulu has long been enthralled by the world of wildlife. In 2002, he began his career in environmental protection as a field specialist focusing on snow leopard conservation. Years later, now Kuban is the director of the Snow Leopard Foundation in Kyrgyzstan and Kyrgyzstan’s coordinator of the Snow Leopard Trust. Under his guidance, the Snow Leopard Foundation in Kyrgyzstan’s research arm has been able to collect a large amount of scientific data on the current state of the snow leopard population in Kyrgyzstan. Kuban graduated from the Faculty of Geography and Ecology of Kyrgyz National University and the Postgraduate School of the Biological and Soil Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic. He received his Master’s of Science from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, with his thesis serving as the first post-Soviet scientific work devoted to the rare snow leopard and its relationship with other large predators in Kyrgyzstan. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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