Unsustainable hunting, both illegal and legal, has led to the extirpation of many species. In the last 35 years giraffe Giraffa spp. populations have declined precipitously, with extinctions documented in seven African countries. Amongst the various reasons for these population declines, poaching is believed to play an important role in some areas. Giraffes are primarily hunted for consumption and for the use of their body parts as trophies and in traditional medicine. However, the socio-economic factors that correlate with the use of giraffe body parts are not well understood. We conducted our study in Tsavo Conservation Area, Kenya, which experiences high levels of poaching. We used semi-structured surveys amongst 331 households to document how giraffe body parts are typically acquired and their intended use (i.e. trophy, medicinal or consumptive). We then used logistic regression models to assess the correlations between nine socio-economic factors and the use of giraffe body parts. We found that giraffe body parts had mostly consumptive and trophy uses. One-time suppliers, opportunistic access and widely known markets were the most common means of acquiring giraffe body parts. Results from our models showed that three variables (gender: men, occupation: tourism worker, and land ownership) were correlated significantly and positively with the use of giraffe body parts. We describe the complex links between socio-economic factors and the use of giraffe body parts and highlight the importance of implementing mitigation measures adapted to local contexts to combat a challenge that many species of conservation concern are facing.

Flying foxes are keystone species on islands and are threatened worldwide, particularly by forest degradation, hunting and culling. They are often persecuted if they are perceived as agricultural pests, but the extent of crop damage from flying foxes and the factors triggering their visits to crops are not well established. This study aimed to investigate wildlife-caused damage to tankan oranges Citrus tankan on Okinawa Island, Japan, and interactions between the Ryukyu flying fox Pteropus dasymallus and farmers. We compiled data from three sources: official records of wildlife-caused crop damage, questionnaire surveys of 43 farmers and time-lapse camera surveys conducted at 14 locations during January–February 2018. Official records and the questionnaire survey indicated that the large-billed crow Corvus macrorhynchos caused most damage in a typical year (53–56% of the total damage), followed by P. dasymallus (18–28%). However, time-lapse camera surveys suggested negligible damage caused by P. dasymallus (2.1%) in 2018, a typhoon-free year. Farmers perceived a decline in local population size and stated that at least 2,000 P. dasymallus individuals had died in their orchards during 2008–2018. If this is extrapolated to the whole region, fatalities could have reached 6,500–8,500 individuals during that period. Binomial regression performed on official records demonstrated that damage by P. dasymallus was largely explained by interannual cyclonic activity. Prevalent netting practices could be a serious threat to P. dasymallus: 81% of interviewees reported that flying foxes die from entanglement in their nets. Nevertheless, half of these farmers were satisfied with current crop protection measures. These findings call for prompt remediation with particular focus on implementing more bat-friendly crop protection following strong typhoon seasons.

Interactions between the Sumatran tiger Panthera tigris sumatrae and people (e.g. injury or loss of lives of people and tigers, evacuation of injured tigers, loss of livestock and sightings of tigers) can negatively affect the conservation of the subspecies. Land-use change in Sumatra has reduced habitat for tigers, forcing them into human-dominated landscapes and increasing the probability of interactions with people. Although the number of such interactions is high in South-east Asia, few studies have been published since 2000 and for Sumatra there is a lack of information regarding where these events occur. We collated data on human–tiger interactions in the province of Riau using web scraping of news sources published during 2010–2020, and mapped these data to village boundaries. We recorded 101 interaction events, with a total of 107 interactions, which we categorized into seven types (people injured or killed, livestock killed, sightings of tigers, tigers killed, injured or evacuated), in 78 villages. Most interactions with reported locations occurred close to settlements (35%), followed by in plantations (26%) and smallholdings (25%), with forests and forest edges comprising 14% of such events. Interactions were dominated by sightings of tigers, but severe interaction types (human death or injury and attacks on livestock) were also reported. The mean annual number of human–tiger interactions was 4.6 during 2011–2017 and 21.3 during 2017–2020. We highlight the need for mitigation and prevention, such as establishing conflict mitigation teams, improving animal husbandry practices, and providing training and education on human–tiger interactions focused in plantations and settlements.

Wildlife movements within a landscape are influenced by environmental factors such as food availability and, as human-modified landscapes continue to expand, the risks associated with encountering people. For Asian elephants Elephas maximus, human-dominated landscapes can be a risky but also rewarding habitat. When elephants share space with people, negative human–elephant interactions are common, sometimes resulting in injuries or deaths of both people and elephants. We monitored elephant movements in and out of a forest reserve in central Sri Lanka to test four predictions regarding elephant behaviour: (1) visits to agricultural areas occur at times of the year when crops are plentiful, (2) elephants exploit these areas by night to avoid interactions with people, (3) increased nocturnal illumination reduces use of agricultural areas, and (4) males make greater use of anthropogenic food sources than family groups. Analysis of camera-trap data confirmed that elephants visited human-dominated areas mostly at night. The frequency of such incursions was not influenced by moon phase for males, but there was a weak effect of moon phase for family groups. Males moved more frequently into human-dominated landscapes than family groups, and their movements showed a distinct seasonal pattern, peaking at times of rice and fruit harvest. Our findings suggest that elephants primarily venture into human-dominated areas to consume crops. Encouraging farmers in areas frequented by elephants to adapt land-use practices (e.g. guarding crops, fencing villages, planting orange/citrus fences) and establish early warning systems could help limit the damage caused by elephants.

Livestock depredation by snow leopards Panthera uncia poses a significant threat to the livelihoods of pastoral communities and engenders negative attitudes towards the species, threatening its survival. We conducted 104 semi-structured interviews within local communities (livestock herders and owners) in the Nyesyang valley of Manang District, in the Annapurna Conservation Area, western Nepal, to assess the status of livestock depredation and community attitudes towards snow leopards. During February 2016–January 2018, respondents reportedly lost 279 livestock to snow leopards (mean loss of 1.3 livestock per household), comprising 3.7% of the total stockholding in 2018. This loss amounts to a monetary loss of USD 319 per annum for each household. Only half of the households who lost livestock to snow leopards in the previous 2 years received compensation from the Conservation Area. Almost an equal proportion of respondents held positive (42%) and negative (41%) attitudes towards snow leopards. An ordered logistic regression analysis revealed that being a woman, being illiterate, owning a high number of large-bodied livestock and relying primarily on agropastoralism were factors associated significantly with negative attitudes towards snow leopards. We recommend focusing conservation education on illiterate community members and engaging more women in conservation programmes, along with a community-based insurance scheme for large-sized livestock to mitigate losses and improve local community attitudes towards snow leopards.

Conservation action plans need to be devised and implemented if we are to reduce the extinction risk faced by globally threatened plants. However, most plant species categorized as threatened globally on the IUCN Red List lack conservation action plans. In West Africa, Guinea is one of the most diverse countries in terms of botanical species. In total, 273 plant species in Guinea have been assessed as being threatened globally, reflecting increasing pressure from the extractive industry and a growing population requiring food and fuel. In parallel with the implementation of an Important Plant Area programme in Guinea, we developed conservation action plans for 20 threatened plant species through a pilot study. We outline the methods we used and demonstrate the importance of adopting a collaborative approach and having up-to-date field information. The need for such plans is urgent, with recent estimates suggesting that one-third of African plants are threatened with extinction. Based on our experience with the first 20 conservation action plans for Guinea species, we suggest that the preparation of multi-species conservation action plans would be an efficient use of the limited resources available for species conservation.

Wild meat is associated with an increased risk of zoonotic diseases. In some West African countries wild meat consumption declined as the result of official restrictions following Ebola outbreaks during 2013–2016, and was also affected by the current Covid-19 pandemic. In Sierra Leone, a country affected by these diseases, we documented wild meat use in four markets in the capital, Freetown. From a total of 197 interviews, we analysed the influence of age and gender on the types of wild meat eaten and the reasons for their consumption. We found that more men than women consumed wild meat, and for both genders taste was the main reason for eating wild meat. Age did not affect wild meat consumption amongst women. Evidence for changes in consumer behaviour in response to zoonotic disease risk was mixed. Although some consumers avoided wild meat because of disease risk, none stated this was the primary reason for not eating wild meat, and monkeys (presumed to carry a high zoonotic disease risk) were amongst the species cited as being consumed often. More work is needed to identify the best pathway towards safe and sustainable consumption of wild meat in urban Sierra Leone.

Urbanization of natural landscapes and increasing human populations have brought people and our companion animals into closer contact with wildlife, even within protected areas. To provide guidance for human–wildlife coexistence, it is therefore critical to understand the effects of anthropogenic disturbances and how well native wildlife species survive in human-dominated landscapes. We investigated the spatio-temporal responses of 10 vertebrate taxa, with an emphasis on the Endangered Eld's deer Rucervus eldii thamin, to anthropogenic disturbances in Shwesettaw Wildlife Sanctuary, Myanmar. We quantified anthropogenic disturbances as distance from human settlements, distance from a highway, and the presence of people and free-ranging dogs Canis familiaris. Anthropogenic disturbances had stronger negative impacts on the detection of native wildlife species than on occupancy. Eld's deer avoided areas close to human settlements and showed low diel activity overlap with both people and dogs, although we found a positive association with human presence at the camera-trap sites. Five species exhibited lower diel activity overlap with people in the rainy season when human activity is the highest in our study area. All studied wildlife species shifted to nocturnal activity or did not show any clear activity pattern during the cool-dry season when the presence of dogs increased. The ecological and conservation impacts of dogs are underestimated in South-east Asia, particularly in Myanmar, and this case study highlights the impacts of dogs on the temporal use of habitat by wildlife and the need for better practices in the management of dogs within protected areas.

Riverine systems and associated fish populations worldwide are threatened by human impacts, especially in tropical countries with emerging economies. In India, community-based fish sanctuaries are a key mechanism for the conservation of freshwater fish populations, but there are few peer-reviewed studies on this subject. Here we integrate over 35 combined years of field experience with a literature synthesis to define and classify community-based fish sanctuaries. We present a novel, critical analysis of fish sanctuaries as social–ecological systems with a functional characterization based on natural capital, ecosystem services, human well-being, and policy and governance. We find that such sanctuaries are shaped by complex social–ecological processes, including coevolution of religious practices and ecological change, feedback processes created by retaliatory conflicts between river users, and diverse and dynamic governance strategies. These sanctuaries hold great potential for the conservation of rare fish species in India, but are subject to myriad threats at local, regional and global scales. Given the complexity of these social–ecological systems, we outline their conservation potential and highlight directions for future research.

Many protected areas worldwide have been established to protect the last natural refuges of flagship animal species. However, long-established protected areas do not always match the current distributions of target species under changing environmental conditions. Here we present a case study of the Asian elephant Elephas maximus in Xishuangbanna, south-west China, to evaluate whether the established protected areas match the species’ current distribution and to identify key habitat patches for Asian elephant conservation. Our results show that currently only 24.5% of the predicted Asian elephant distribution in Xishuangbanna is located within Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve, which was established for elephant conservation. Based on the predicted Asian elephant distribution, we identified the most important habitat patches for elephant conservation in Xishuangbanna. The three most important patches were outside Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve and together they contained 43.3% of the estimated food resources for Asian elephants in all patches in Xishuangbanna. Thus, we identified a spatial mismatch between immobile protected areas and mobile animals. We recommend the inclusion of the three identified key habitat patches in a new national park currently being planned by the Chinese authorities for the conservation of the Asian elephant.

The rare plant Primula esquirolii, a karst cave species in the family Primulaceae, endemic to Guizhou, China, and with a presumed extremely small population, had not previously been observed since 1910. It is categorized as Endangered on the China Species Red List. In surveys during 2018–2022, we were unable to locate the species in its type location in Pingba county, but we discovered a previously unrecorded population of 44 mature individuals, 37 of which were long homostylous and seven of which were heterostylous. These individuals were discovered in Xiuwen county in February 2022, in an area of c. 50 m2, c. 40 km from the type location. All seven heterostylous individuals showed the short-styled morph. The almost homostylous P. esquirolii potentially faces the same high genetic load as other homostylous plants, and this may have led to its small population size and potential sensitivity to habitat destruction. Field surveys and informal interviews with local people indicated that the main threats to this species are its small population size and the loss of suitable habitat as a result of human activities. The most urgent requirement for the conservation of this species is to protect the habitat of this single known extant population and to carry out ex situ conservation. Further field surveys and research are also required to improve our understanding of the status of this species.