In partnership with the Arunachal Pradesh Forest Department, WWF-India led the first systematic assessment of snow leopards in the state and established a population baseline in 2024. The study combined camera-trap surveys at 115 sites with 282 interviews across 293 survey grids, and rigorous spatial modelling estimated 36 individuals. Long-term monitoring has since expanded to over 2,000 sq. km., with around 130 camera traps at 90 locations. The surveys have also produced the first photographic record of Pallas’s cat in Arunachal Pradesh and high-altitude records of clouded leopard, marbled cat and leopard cat. These findings have reshaped the understanding of mesocarnivore distribution in the Eastern Himalaya.

WWF-India has supported the establishment and strengthening of a network of nine Community Conserved Areas (CCAs) across Tawang and West Kameng. What began in 2004 with a 30 sq. km. voluntary conservation initiative at Thembang village now covers more than 1,500 sq. km. of community-governed forests. The organization’s support includes biodiversity assessments, participatory management planning, governance training and exposure visits for community leaders. The CCA model is now recognised as an approach that can be replicated across mountain landscapes where customary institutions govern forests.

Through a long-term partnership with Brokpa and Monpa pastoralists and their customary village institutions, WWF-India has facilitated a participatory process across 15 pastoral villages in Tawang and West Kameng to co-develop a landscape-scale vision for high-altitude rangelands, pastoral livelihoods and traditional governance. This process is anchoring the Brokpa Rangeland Vision—a long-term framework that links rangeland health, cultural continuity and climate adaptation—and is being taken forward through a multi-stakeholder endorsement process with state and district authorities.

Human–wildlife coexistence in this landscape is grounded in a detailed understanding of livestock depredation patterns. These are identified through pastoral surveys and structured consultations with Brokpa herders. The evidence base also informs the deployment of predator-proof corrals, solar-powered fencing against crop-raiding ungulates, and agro-ecological interventions that reduce crop damage and strengthen household resilience. Together, these efforts contribute to a community-based coexistence model that pairs technical solutions with institutional support. It also ensures that the burden of living alongside large carnivores and ungulates is neither borne by the poorest households nor addressed through retaliation.

The Western Arunachal Landscape is one of the least studied regions of the Eastern Himalayas. Systematic biodiversity documentation across community forests is making this landscape scientifically legible for the first time. WWF-India’s work has generated new records of mammals, birds and habitat types, informing both CCA management plans and wider conservation prioritisation. This growing body of evidence is not only being published and shared with state and national agencies but it also forms the foundation on which the programme’s interventions rest.

A state-level consortium of Community Conserved Areas (CCAs) is being formalised to consolidate peer learning across CCAs, strengthen collective voices in policy processes, and secure the long-term viability of community-led forest governance. WWF-India also engages with the Arunachal Pradesh Forest Department and district administrations on matters ranging from survey design and protected area planning to rangeland policy and human–wildlife conflict management, drawing on two decades of field evidence and the trust of community institutions.

Ultimately, the programme aims to ensure that the Western Arunachal Landscape remains a resilient stronghold for Eastern Himalayan biodiversity, sustained by the indigenous communities whose cultural heritage is rooted in its forests and rangelands.