Ang Phuri Sherpa

Ang Phuri Sherpa is the Red Panda Netwok's Country Director in Nepal. From 2001 to 2013, Sherpa worked for World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Nepal and wore a variety of hats and accrued many responsibilities. From 2001 to 2005, he worked as Project Manager for the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area Project (KCAP), a joint initiative of WWF and the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC). As planned the Conservation Area was handed over to the local community in September 2006 for community management. Since 2006 he was the Country Coordinator of a regional level program funded by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF). The CEPF funding enabled local communities and civil society organizations to be engaged in local conservation initiatives in the Kangchenjunga Singhalila Complex and Terai Arc Landscape of Nepal.

After coordinating the CEPF funding, Sherpa continued on with WWF Nepal as Program Development Specialist where he helped to develop community-based tourism projects. Then at the start of 2014, he received an opportunity to work as Country Director for Red Panda Network. “I am very excited to join the Red Panda Network team and committed to bring in over 12 years of experience in community-based red panda conservation. We are losing red pandas because of shrinking habitats caused by anthropogenic activities, but I have a deep rooted belief that conservation cannot happen on an empty stomach. We must balance the need for conservation along with the need for improving the lives of local people and only then, when people have all their basic necessities met, can we support them in becoming true stewards of natural resources.”