The Uluguru Mountains in eastern Tanzania contain at least 16 endemic vertebrate and 135 endemic plant taxa, with hundreds of more taxa shared only with forests in eastern Tanzania and Kenya. This degree of endemism is exceptional in tropical Africa, and the Uluguru Mountains are one of the 10 most important tropical forest sites for conservation on the continent. Surveys carried out during 1999–2001 updated information on the status of forests and biodiversity across the Uluguru Mountains. Forest area has declined from c. 300 km2 in 1955 to 230 km2 in 2001. Forest loss has been greatest over altitudes of 600–1,600 m, and concentrated in submontane forest. During the recent surveys most of the endemic and near-endemic vertebrate species known from the Uluguru Mountains were re-recorded, but three endemic snake species and two near-endemic bird species were not found. These species were previously known from the elevations where deforestation has been greatest. More than 50 plant species are also known only from the altitude range that has been heavily deforested. The primary cause of forest loss has been clearance for new farmland. The forest that does remain is largely confined to Catchment Forest Reserves managed for water by the Tanzanian Government. Without these reserves the loss of forest, and hence the loss of biodiversity, in the Uluguru Mountains would most likely have been much greater.

Removing invasive rats from islands is a powerful conservation tool, and practitioners are now targeting larger islands for rat eradication. As they do so, they face the challenge of mitigating for potential non-target impacts on native biodiversity that may be susceptible to rodenticides. We report on the eradication of black rats Rattus rattus from Anacapa Island, California, in 2001–2002, which was the first-ever invasive rodent eradication from an entire island where an endemic rodent was present and the first aerial application of a rodenticide in North America. As a mitigation strategy we staggered the rodenticide application over 2 years and held a representative sample of the Anacapa deer mouse Peromyscus maniculatus anacapae in captivity. We also mitigated for bird species potentially susceptible to brodifacoum poisoning and monitored aspects of the terrestrial and marine environments. The free-ranging native rodent population severely declined following rodenticide applications but reintroduction and translocation efforts were successful, and the population quickly recovered to pre-eradication levels. Non-target impacts also included mortality of raptors, gulls and passerines, including high mortality of rufous-crowned sparrows Aimophila ruficeps obscura despite planned mitigation. All observed non-target impacts are expected to be ephemeral; however, further monitoring should reveal details on the dynamics of those impacts. Brodifacoum was not detected in the marine environment or in significant amounts in terrestrial soil, plants and arthropods. Seabird benefits from the rat eradication were quickly realized.

The Guianas contain one of the largest single remaining tracts of undisturbed tropical rainforest in the world, but this forest and its fauna are facing increased threats. In the north of French Guiana both anthropogenic pressures and conflicts between settlements related to the use of natural resources are growing. Based on surveys in 17 forest sites we show that hunting pressure was the main factor determining current primate species richness, masking the effects of logging or forest type. Three of the larger species, the red howler monkey Alouatta seniculus, black spider monkey Ateles paniscus and tufted capuchin Cebus apella, were less abundant in hunted areas. In the areas around four settlements the harvested biomass of primates was low compared to other game species, but the harvests were close to or beyond the maximal sustainable thresholds for the red howler monkey and tufted capuchin. In French Guiana primates are either fully protected by law (the spider monkey and white-faced saki Pithecia pithecia), or their hunting is restricted to subsistence use (howler monkey, tufted capuchin and wedge-capped capuchin Cebus olivaceus). Most hunted meat is, however, destined for sale. Current conservation policy in French Guiana is limited to legal protection for some species and areas, and laws are poorly enforced. Although large areas of forest and its wildlife are protected simply by their remoteness, there is an increasingly urgent need for the legal protection of all primate species, and the establishment of large protected areas and efficient forest management schemes to minimize the impacts of logging and hunting.

China is the largest consumer of turtles in the world and international trade has been cited as the greatest threat to Asian turtles. Two main types of trade in live turtles occur in China: for food and traditional Chinese medicine, and for pets, including those for release by Buddhists. The food trade involves the largest quantities of turtles. In recent years, however, the international pet turtle trade has increased dramatically. Yuehe Pet Market in Guangzhou is the largest pet market in China. selling live chelonians and other animals. To understand the potential impacts of the pet trade on chelonians we conducted seven surveys in Yuehe Pet Market from August 2006 to March 2008. Over 39,000 individual chelonians of 61 species were recorded (19.1% of the global total of 319 species). Fifteen (24.6%) of these species are native to China and 46 (75.4%) are native to other countries. Two are designated as grade II key state-protected species in China. Thirty-eight (62.3%) are CITES listed species (four in CITES Appendix I, 26 in CITES II and eight in CITES III). Four are categorized on the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered, 16 as Endangered and 19 as Vulnerable. Our surveys indicate that increasing demand and the illegal international pet trade could be having a severe impact on chelonian conservation, and we make recommendations for law enforcement and conservation.

Surface fires have recently become a widespread pantropical phenomenon that could trigger revolutionary changes in the structure and functioning of tropical forests and result in a catastrophic impoverishment of the vertebrate fauna. Here we describe the short- and medium-term responses of bird and mammal assemblages to an unprecedented wildfire that scorched the understorey of 1,100 km2 of forest in the Arapiuns-Maró river basin of central Brazilian Amazonia. Fire-induced mortality in the aftermath of this burn was high for a wide range of plant and animal populations monitored. This included an average of 36% of all large trees in eight quarter-hectare plots sampled in burnt forest, which dramatically altered the post-burn understorey light environment. The Arapiuns wildfire also resulted in significant socioeconomic costs to local forest dwellers, namely crop losses and the decimation of many forest resources, including key game vertebrate species pursued by subsistence hunters, vines and woody lianas, and many fruit species. The conservation prospects of the vertebrate fauna in fire-prone Amazonian forests are discussed with respect to the increasingly more frequent and severe El Niño-mediated dry seasons.

Illegal exploitation of resources is a cause of environmental degradation worldwide. The effectiveness of conservation initiatives such as marine protected areas relies on users' compliance with regulations. Although compliance can be motivated by social norms (e.g. peer pressure and legitimacy), some enforcement is commonly necessary. Enforcement is expensive, particularly in areas far from land, but costs can be reduced by optimizing enforcement. We present a case study of how enforcement could be optimized at Cocos Island National Park, Costa Rica, an offshore protected area and World Heritage Site. By analysing patrol records we determined the spatial and temporal distribution of illegal fishing and its relationship to patrol effort. Illegal fishing was concentrated on a seamount within the Park and peaked during the third year-quarter, probably as a result of oceanographic conditions. The lunar cycle in conjunction with the time of year significantly influenced the occurrence of incursions. The predictability of illegal fishing in space and time facilitates the optimization of patrol effort. Repeat offenders are common in the Park and we suggest that unenforced regulations and weak governance are partly to blame. We provide recommendations for efficient distribution of patrol effort in space and time, establishing adequate governance and policy, and designing marine protected areas to improve compliance. Our methods and recommendations are applicable to other protected areas and managed natural resources.

Systematic conservation planning is widely considered the most effective approach for designing protected area and other ecological networks. However, many conservation practitioners still ignore these methods and we suggest that five perceived limitations of this process are affecting its uptake. These perceptions are that (1) systematic conservation planning software is difficult to use, (2) the process requires extensive biodiversity distribution data, (3) setting targets for representing conservation features is not possible, (4) the advantages of systematic conservation planning do not outweigh the costs, and (5) the resulting plans often identify unsuitable areas. Here we review these perceived limitations and argue they are all misplaced, although we recognize difficulties in the target setting process. We then illustrate the value of systematic conservation planning to practitioners using a case study that describes a low-cost exercise from Maputaland, South Africa. This preliminary conservation assessment measured the effectiveness of the existing reserve system and identified a number of candidate areas that could be the focus of community- or privately-run ecotourism or game ranching ventures. Our results also emphasize both the importance of producing planning outputs that are specifically targeted for stakeholders, and the role of systematic conservation planning in providing a framework for integrating different provincial, national and transnational conservation initiatives.

The collapse of South Asia's Gyps vulture populations is attributable to the veterinary use of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) diclofenac. Vultures died after feeding on carcasses of recently-medicated animals. The governments of India, Nepal and Pakistan banned the veterinary use of diclofenac in 2006. We analysed results of 62 necropsies and 48 NSAID assays of liver and/or kidney for vultures of five species found dead in India between 2000 and 2012. Visceral gout and diclofenac were detected in vultures from nine states and three species: Gyps bengalensis, Gyps indicus and Gyps himalayensis. Visceral gout was found in every vulture carcass in which a measurable level of diclofenac was detected. Meloxicam, an NSAID of low toxicity to vultures, was found in two vultures and nimesulide in five vultures. Nimesulide at elevated tissue concentrations was associated with visceral gout in four of these cases, always without diclofenac, suggesting that nimesulide may have similar toxic effects to those of diclofenac. Residues of meloxicam on its own were never associated with visceral gout. The proportion of Gyps vultures found dead in the wild in India with measurable levels of diclofenac in their tissues showed a modest and non-significant decline since the ban on the veterinary use of diclofenac. The prevalence of visceral gout declined less, probably because some cases of visceral gout from 2008 onwards were associated with nimesulide rather than diclofenac. Veterinary use of nimesulide is a potential threat to the recovery of vulture populations.

The Okomu Forest Reserve in south-west Nigeria contains a 114-sq-km wildlife sanctuary that is an important refuge for several threatened species, including the white-throated guenon Cercopithecus erythrogaster. A conservation project that started in Okomu in 1987 focused initially on protection, but the emphasis recently shifted to a programme of agricultural development assistance to migrant farmers in the reserve. This approach, which appears to follow the philosophy espoused in IUCN/UNEP/WWF's Caring for the Earth, may hasten rather than prevent the destruction of this remnant tropical forest and its wildlife.

In response to a declaration in 2004 from a coalition of conservation and animal welfare organizations to ban imports of wild birds into the European Union, we propose that such blanket or indiscriminate bans are unlikely to be effective as a generic conservation approach to the wild bird trade. We further argue that such trade bans, particularly when imposed by Northern constituencies on Southern countries and communities, can act counter to broader values of equity and sustainable development. Here we draw attention to a range of problems and unforeseen consequences of trade bans and highlight the conservation potential of market-led mechanisms that seek to reform trade chains to make them more ethical and sustainable. We contend that it is time for conservation scientists to critically examine the evidence concerning the efficacy of these two strategies as they relate to the trade in wild birds.

The emerging field of ethnoprimatology focuses on the conservation implications of ecological and cultural interconnections between humans and other primates. The ethnoprimatological research reported here examined how the Tonkean macaque Macaca tonkeana is situated in the folklore of villagers in Lore Lindu National Park, Sulawesi, Indonesia. Data were collected using ethnographic interview techniques. The interviews revealed that villagers envision monkeys and humans as biologically, ecologically and culturally interrelated. The perceived cultural linkages between humans and macaques, however, are more salient among the indigenous To Lindu than among migrants. For many To Lindu the folklore has resulted in a taboo that prevents them harming the macaques, despite the species’ frequent crop-raiding behaviour. The conservation significance of the taboo is therefore the local protection it affords this endemic primate. This research lends support for the incorporation of informal institutions, such as taboos, in the conservation management of protected areas.

Human–elephant conflict in India, driven by habitat loss and an expanding human population, is a complex challenge for biodiversity conservation. Determining if, how and why this conflict has changed over time will be an important step towards managing landscapes where people and elephants Elephas maximus coexist. This study combines social surveys and remote sensing data to analyse patterns in human–elephant conflict and land-use change over time. The reported experience of conflict increased dramatically in the early 1980s, with 85% of those surveyed indicating that conflict began after 1980. The expansion of conflict showed a significant southward trend and was associated with forest cover dropping below 30–40%. Based on our results we propose that a critical habitat threshold for human–elephant conflict may exist at 30–40% forest cover. Below this level, conflict expanded across the landscape. The existence of such a deforestation threshold may have important implications for landscape management in elephant range states that seek to avoid or mitigate further conflict. Maintenance of remaining forest areas, reforestation, and the creation of habitat corridors are strategies that could help prevent further expansion of conflict.

Human-wildlife conflict has negative implications for wildlife conservation, and current crop protection methods are not sufficient to address the problem. Alternative livelihood strategies may provide the ultimate solution to this conflict but they are not always feasible in the short-term. We test the viability of using chilli Capsicum spp. as an unpalatable cash crop to reduce human-wildlife conflict. Our trials indicate that chilli is less vulnerable to wildlife than other crops and is also economically viable.

The African wild dog Lycaon pictus has declined dramatically over the past 30 years. Formerly distributed throughout sub-Saharan Africa, today c. 5000 wild dogs remain in total, mostly in southern and eastern Africa. Wild dogs' decline reflects the expansion of human populations and the associated fragmentation of habitat available to wildlife. Because wild dogs live at very low densities, even ‘fragments’ covering thousands of square kilometres may not support viable populations. Furthermore, packs often range beyond the borders of reserves, so even nominally protected populations are often subject to persecution, road accidents, snaring and disease contracted from domestic dogs. Such edge effects mean that reserves smaller than c. 10,000 sq km will provide only incomplete protection. The highest priority for wild dog conservation, therefore, is to maintain and promote the contiguity of areas available to wildlife. Establishing cross-border parks and buffer zones, and encouraging game ranching on reserve borders, will all be beneficial. In smaller areas, protecting wild dogs requires that edge effects be mitigated by: (i) working with local farmers to limit persecution; (ii) controlling snaring; (iii) routing roads carrying high-speed traffic away from wildlife areas; and (iv) minimizing contact between wildlife and domestic dogs. Most of these measures will also benefit other wildlife.

Sanderson & Redford's (2003) correct insistence that poverty alleviation programmes ought more actively to include conservation would be well matched by an awareness of the impacts of some conservation policies, particularly the establishment of strictly protected areas, on local livelihoods. Lands protected as wilderness require the removal or exclusion of people and are locally costly. Wilderness protection requires, we argue, far more awareness of the nature and extent of these costs wherever conservation interests have to be served by people's absence.

Conservation research has a poor record of translating science into action. Previous surveys have investigated the lack of information exchange between researchers and practitioners by focusing on the uptake of peer-reviewed literature by practitioners from developed countries. They largely ignore conservation practitioners and researchers from developing countries, for whom accessing scientific data may be more difficult. This survey investigates how practitioners and researchers from developing countries access the scientific information needed in their work, and the place of peer-reviewed literature in this process. Our results suggest that practitioners access and use peer-reviewed literature; however, both practitioners and researchers mainly obtain information from open-access journals and do not base their choice on a journal's Impact Factor. Furthermore, researchers and practitioners in developing countries appear to be looking for more direct collaboration to ensure research is relevant to their needs, as well as more open-access journals and new ways to disseminate information.

Wildlife (bushmeat or game) is the primary source of protein for most poor households in tropical forests, and its consumption is resulting in unsustainable hunting of large animals, even in isolated regions. As a result, loss of fauna is often a more immediate and significant threat to the conservation of biological diversity in tropical forests than is deforestation. Although the potential effects of the extirpation from tropical forests of large, seed predating and seed dispersing wild animals is poorly understood, it is likely that there will be irrevocable changes in the structure and function of these ecosystems. We carried out a survey of 510 households of Tsimane' Amerindians in the rainforest of Bolivia to investigate how the prices of game and meat from domesticated animals affect the consumption of game. The results indicated that the price of fish and meat from livestock is positively correlated with consumption of wildlife, suggesting that policy makers may be able to reduce the unsustainable hunting of wildlife for food by reducing the price of fish and the price of meat from domesticated animals relative to that of wildlife. Increasing the production of livestock without causing environmental degradation will require long-term public investment in agricultural research and extension, and substitution of fish for game meat in the absence of sustainable management regimes will result in over-exploitation of riverine and lacustrine fish stocks.

Depending on the mosaic of habitats that is created, forest fragmentation can reduce the abundance and diversity of forest birds. Temperate deciduous forests in South America are rapidly being replaced by pine plantations, causing changes in habitats for both breeding and migrant birds. We examined differences in avian species richness and abundance in three areas: a reserve with continuous tracts of native forest, forest fragments and pine plantations. Four species were negatively affected by fragmentation, with their abundance declining from continuous forest to pine plantations. Fourteen species were not affected by fragmentation and eight had significantly increased abundance in pine plantations compared to continuous forest. Overall abundance in pooled and ground/understorey birds was higher in forest fragments and pine plantations compared to continuous forest. The abundance of granivorous species was higher in the pine plantations than in the forest reserve, but the abundance of insectivorous species was higher in the forest reserve and in forest fragments than in pine plantations. Thus, forest fragmentation affects birds differentially according to their feeding ecology.

Finding ways for people and wildlife to coexist requires affording both parties access to critical resources and space, but also a behavioural change by both to avoid conflict. We investigated pathway use in a population of free-ranging African elephants Loxodonta africana in the Okavango Panhandle, Botswana that share their range with humans in a multi-use, heterogeneous landscape. We used detailed ground surveys to identify and map elephant movement pathways, and mixed-effect models to explore factors influencing elephant numbers and movement behaviour on and around these pathways. We found deviation in pathway use among the elephant population, suggesting behavioural adaptations to avoid human-associated risk: avoiding pathways near settlements, particularly near larger settlements; avoiding pathways close to cultivated land; and adopting a safety-in-numbers strategy when moving through areas of human use. Our findings suggest there is opportunity to capitalize on risk avoidance by elephant populations, to minimize resource-use overlap and reduce conflict between humans and elephants. We discuss a strategy that involves ensuring appropriate protection of elephant pathways in land-use planning, using development-free buffer zones, combined with mitigation techniques along the interface with agricultural lands to increase risk levels and reinforce human–elephant interface boundaries. We recommend further examination of the use of landscape-level mitigation techniques that encourage elephants to use pathways away from human activity and help define spatial boundaries for management of human–elephant conflict in multi-use landscapes.