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Dear friends,
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Snow leopards are running out of places to live.
Now one of their last refuges is about to be destroyed.
The Chhujung River valley is a precious mountain wilderness, up in the Himalayas. A world of frozen waterfalls and bright green meadows. The home of musk deer, red pandas, and some of the last snow leopards on Earth.
But as you read this, bulldozers are coming to build a massive hydropower reservoir -- an endless lake that would drown the valley and all the life it holds.
Indigenous communities have a brilliant plan to stop it -- we can help make it work!
Building the dam requires new access roads. But with our donations, Indigenous communities could purchase specific chunks of land, blocking the path of these roads, so the reservoir can't be built.
If we raise enough from this email, we can secure 45 acres of land and community leaders say they can get it officially protected in weeks. Your donation will also be used to power more campaigns like this -- joining Indigenous communities to defend the natural world.
Let's help protect these snow leopards, and their mountain wilderness. Donate what you can now:
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Snow leopards face life-and-death threats at every turn: mega infrastructure projects, poaching, and the climate crisis… their world is melting and shrinking away, year by year. There may only be 3,500 left in the wild. This new hydropower dam would be another nail in the coffin -- flooding one of the few undisturbed territories they have left in the Himalayan mountains.Nepal’s Indigenous Bhote community have stewarded this land for centuries. They're the reason it has remained a safe haven for threatened species like snow leopards. But if this dam goes ahead, their villages, monasteries, and way of life could all be washed away. It's their plan to buy this land -- a fight for biodiversity, and their own survival. The plan has already worked in other parts of Nepal, but it requires funding that local communities simply don't have. If we raise enough, we could:- Buy strategic parcels of land in Nepal’s Chhujung valley -- registering them as officially protected, blocking bulldozers from their intended construction site, and supporting the legal and media work to ensure protections are upheld;
- Partner with Indigenous communities who are fighting to protect their lands around the world -- supporting them to resist megaprojects, and protecting our world’s remaining biodiversity;
- Fund crucial Indigenous lawsuits -- that challenge land grabs and the decimation of ecosystems and watersheds; and
- Push for radical action on biodiversity and climate -- getting Indigenous leaders to the nature summits that matter in the coming months.
Our movement supported the Bhote community to lay down protections for this region in 2019 -- helping to create a huge 'biocultural heritage zone'. But Nepal’s hunger for hydropower has only grown. Now, we need to help the Bhote finish the job, and protect this place for good. Together, we can help them preserve their culture, and protect a vast snow leopard habitat in a rapidly changing world. Donate what you can now:
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Avaaz is proud to have stood with Indigenous Peoples in their fight for justice -- blocking megaprojects and land grabs from Tanzania to the Amazon. We’re a movement from every country on Earth: lawyers, activists, teachers, journalists, grandparents. And when millions of us act as one, across the planet, we can make an outsize difference to the world we leave our future ancestors.
With fierce hope and endless determination,
Jon, Mike, Bert, Antonia, Ana Sofia and the whole team at Avaaz
PS. This might be your first donation to our movement ever. But what a first donation! Did you know that Avaaz relies entirely on small donations from members like you? That's why we're fully independent, nimble and effective. Join the over 1 million people who've donated to make Avaaz a real force for good in the world.
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