Taking conservation beyond awareness generation: Leveraging citizen science through diversity, abundance, and habitat assessment for pollinator conservation in the Himalayas

Conservation is usually focused on specific species or their habitats. A major drawback of conservation efforts is their failure to involve the stakeholders directly interacting with the subject of conservation. We present 2 case studies from the Himalayas where farmers participated in bee conservation directly through assessment activities of species diversity, abundance, and their habitats after awareness generation. We highlight the methods used, their feasibility, and precautions to be taken to overcome drawbacks and biases. Involving local stakeholders by designing user-friendly capacity-building toolkits for conservation and monitoring can assist in achieving long-term conservation goals and more sustainable human livelihoods.