The Snow Leopard and the Goat

"[A] fascinating account of snow leopard con-servation in Baltistan... Shafqat's dissection of conservation discourse exposes the inverse cor-relation between resource distribution and responsibilities in conservation."—Journal of Anthropological Research

"[A] breath of fresh air, suggesting room for optimism amidst the gloom of despairing writing on the snow leopard."—Conservation and Society

"The theoretically dense and historically rich chapters provide a nuanced understanding of how the life of the snow leopard is intertwined with the life of the goat and other livestock that are kept by the poor Balti herders in open corrals to meet their everyday nutritional needs... Shafqat Hussain's careful analysis invites us to consider the agentivity of this elegant predator in harsh remote terrains, and by combining empirical evidence and scientific analyses, explains how domestic livestock continue to sustain the numbers of this vulnerable cat in the wild."—Pacific Affairs

"Carefully documenting the history of the snow leopard and its trade around the world, evaluating the science asso-ciated with snow leopard conservation and its uncertainties, and contextualizing it with rich ethnographic work, Hussain makes an important contribution to highlight the challenges and dynamics of operationalizing global conservation priorities at the local level."—Journal of Asian Studies

"A much-needed and important book that takes upon itself a difficult task: critiquing the existing narratives and models of global wildlife conservation from a multidisciplinary perspective."—Ghazala Shahabuddin, author of Conservation at the Crossroads: Science, Society, and the Future of India's Wildlife

"In this absolutely brilliant and beautifully written ethnography, Shafqat Hussain shows us the political economy and social ecology of the relations between Balti farmers, conservation activists and managers, and snow leopards. His argument, while grounded in Pakistan, speaks to the larger questions about the relationships between nature and culture and the ethics of who gets to govern those relations. As such it constitutes a major contribution to anthropology, conservation ecology, and political ecology."—Paige West, Claire Tow Professor of Anthropology, Barnard College and Columbia University