Many families in remote snow leopard areas survive on the equivalent of just a few hundred US dollars each year.  Lacking transportation and access to markets, many families are forced to sell their raw wool to traveling traders for just pennies per kilogram.  What’s especially frustrating about this is that their raw wool – and the handicrafts they make with it – are in high demand throughout the world. 

Once wool is processed and wound onto skeins, its value increases considerably.  Whoever processes the wool makes most of the money from that wool.  The Trust is working hard to give low-income herding families the opportunity to do just that, and earn the higher wage they deserve.  Raw camel wool, for example, is sold at an average of $2.70 per kilo in Mongolia.  If this wool is turned into yarn and wound onto skeins, it can be sold at about $13.90 per kilo.        

By providing families with training, equipment, and a regular buyer, participants in our program often increase their household income by 25% and even up to 40%.  The income from Snow Leopard Enterprises is paid in cash directly to the women who make the yarn and handicrafts. Most women use the money to purchase bags of rice and flour, sometimes salt and tea, and if possible, other food to supplement the meat and milk from their livestock.   If they are able to earn more, they use it to send their children to school, and to buy medicines for their families. 

Products are sent to the Snow Leopard Trust headquarters in the US, where supporters are able to purchase these amazing products.  We market them to retail stores, sell them at special events, church events, and through the Snow Leopard Trust online store.

• View slide show of women making felt from wool

Learn more about how Snow Leopard Enterprises:

• Saves endangered species
• Develops handmade products

• Return to Snow Leopard Enterprises main page