Welcome

Since the 1980’s, the University of Montana and the government of Pakistan has collaborated on developing community based conservation programs for wildlife conservation in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan (Fig. 1). Initiated through the passion for international wildlife conservation by Wildlife Biology Program professor Bart O’Gara, the partnership has developed the wildlife conservation capacity of NWFP through education and training, improvements in management structure and the development of a separate Wildlife Department within NWFP, research, and development of community based conservation programs. The partnership has helped directly train 7 highly Meeting with the local people in Palas Valley, District Kohistan skilled wildlife conservation managers who have all successfully returned to Pakistan to lead conservation of wildlife there. Find out more about the Wildlife of Pakistan, our former graduate students, reports and theses, and the story of the success of Markhor conservation on this website.

Finally, none of this collaborative work would have been possible over the years without the funding generously provided by the NWFP Wildlife Department, Shikhar Safari, World Wildlife Fund, Global Environmental Facility of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the IUCN, and the University of Montana.