Across tribal mountain regions, wildlife protection laws crumble against enforcement failures and subsistence hunger
BAJAUR —When villagers spotted a common leopard near their settlement on July 20, they did not hesitate. They opened fire. The animal fell. No one answered for the killing.
The dead leopard was one of the region’s rarest predators. Pakistani law explicitly protects leopards. Punishment for killing one can reach three years in prison, a fine of 45,000 rupees and additional monetary compensation. Yet leopard protection Pakistan remains largely theoretical in practice.
“We identified them through photographs,” said Naveed Ahmad, a District Forest Officer in the tribal areas. “But we will not let them off.” Yet weeks have passed with no arrests, no prosecutions, no visible consequence. This gap between what the law says and what happens exposes a crisis: leopard protection initiatives across Pakistan are failing as common leopards face extinction across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.
The Bajaur killing is not unique. Over five years, villagers have shot leopards in at least seven districts: Kohat, Swat, Mansehra, Kuram and the semi-autonomous tribal territories of Dara Adam Khel, Tirah Valley and Bajaur. Each killing follows the same script. Each is met with near-identical inaction.
Leopard Protection Pakistan
In September 2019, residents of Dara Adam Khel captured a leopard alive. Unable to contain it, they killed the animal. Then they took selfies with its corpse before authorities could arrive.
Three years later, in July 2020, Kuram District residents hunted a leopard with dogs. When the animal fought back, they shot it. The Wildlife Department issued a fine of 150,000 rupees. Multiple residents split the payment. No one went to prison.
The pattern held in March 2023. Villagers killed leopard cubs in Tirah Valley. Weeks later, in Shilman, another adult died to gunfire after raiding livestock. Both incidents generated paperwork. Both generated almost nothing else.
Shahid Khan, an environmental advocate from Bajaur, interviewed residents about the July killing for Express Tribune. He documented how locals stripped the leopard’s skin and refused to surrender it to the Wildlife Department. “People are not worried about consequences,” Khan said in describing the community’s attitude toward the shootings.
The Infrastructure of Failure
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Wildlife and Biodiversity Act of 2015 appears comprehensive. It classifies common leopards as protected animals. It mandates serious penalties for those who kill them. It assigns responsibility to the Wildlife Department and District Forest Officers in each district.
The problem is structural. Ahmad, the forest officer, was candid about it. The region is difficult to access. There is no internet in many areas. Field staff cannot be reached reliably. The Wildlife Department itself acknowledges it does not have comprehensive data on leopard populations—only confirmation that the animals exist in mountain regions of Khyber, Orakzai, Kuram, Bajaur and Dara Adam Khel.
Ali Azeem, a senior advocate at the Peshawar High Court who handles wildlife cases, put it more bluntly. “Although a law exists, enforcement is almost nonexistent in tribal areas,” Azeem said.
He outlined what the law requires: each District Forest Officer should focus on prevention, protecting the leopard’s natural food supply, stopping illegal forest cutting and safeguarding national parks. “In practice,” Azeem said, “the rate of enforcement is almost nil.”
He added: “The basic reasons why leopards are killed every year must be seriously examined.”
The Hunger Behind the Bullets
Those reasons are not mysterious. Leopards are starving. They no longer find sufficient natural prey. They come to settlements searching for food. When they find livestock, they kill it. When residents see predators threatening their animals, they kill first.
The Wildlife Department and legal officials acknowledge this collision. They have proposed nothing to resolve it. Despite decades of leopard protection efforts in Pakistan, no compensation programs reimburse livestock losses. No habitat protection initiatives restore prey populations. No community education efforts explain why leopards matter to people defending their livelihood.
In remote territories where government reach remains limited and poverty is absolute, the equation stays unchanged. A dead leopard means saved livestock. Enforcement is absent. Traditional authority structures can absorb legal fines through collective payment, protecting individuals from prosecution.
The Pattern Continues
Each documented killing adds another name to an informal record. Each month without prosecution sends a message to communities in Bajaur, Kuram, Tirah Valley and Dara Adam Khel: the law protects this animal less than it protects your freedom to kill it.
The Wildlife Department responds in procedural language. Ahmad committed to pursuing cases and cited legal frameworks. Azeem outlined statutes and enforcement gaps. Neither offered a solution that addresses the fundamental problem: a protected species dependent on survival in regions where humans live at subsistence margins.
For now, the common leopard remains endangered across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The law remains on the books. And in the tribal districts where government reach is weakest, the killings continue unchecked.
