Protecting Arabia's Last Leopards

The Critically Endangered Arabian leopard is one of the rarest animals in the world. In Yemen, the Foundation for Endangered Wildlife (FEW) is working to create a management plan for a proposed protected area in the Ibb Mountains, which provides critical habitat for the Arabian leopard.

With support from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) through its investment in the Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspot, FEW is leading inventories of the largely unknown biodiversity in the High Mountains of Ibb Protected Area and identifying the most important sites and the level of threats in order to prepare participatory management plans.

An important component of the grant is advocacy and awareness-raising activities with communities, government officials and traditional authorities, preparing the ground for the official protection of the most important parts of this key biodiversity area.

Read more about FEW's journey to gather information on the Arabian leopard.

Established in 2000, the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) is a global leader in enabling civil society to participate in and influence the conservation of some of the world's most critical ecosystems. CEPF is a joint initiative of l'Agence Française de Développement (AFD), Conservation International, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Government of Japan, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the World Bank. CEPF is unique among funding mechanisms in that it focuses on high-priority biological areas rather than political boundaries and examines conservation threats on a landscape scale. From this perspective, CEPF seeks to identify and support a regional, rather than a national, approach to achieving conservation outcomes and engages a wide range of public and private institutions to address conservation needs through coordinated regional efforts.