A questionnaire survey and literature review revealed the extent of hunting of bats for bushmeat in the Old World tropics. High levels of offtake were reported throughout Asia, the Pacific islands and some Western Indian Ocean islands, where fruit bats of the genus Pteropus are eaten extensively. Most hunting in Africa was reported in western states and the largest fruit bat Eidolon helvum was preferred. Insectivorous bats are also eaten, particularly Tadarida in Asia. Hunting is both for local consumption and commercial, sometimes involving cross-border transactions. The high levels of hunting reported and the low reproductive rate of bats indicate there are likely to be severe negative effects on bat populations, and declines of several species are documented. Although there has been only one reported attempt to manage offtake, this indicates that it is possible and apparently successful. Furthermore, voluntary controls on hunting have halted declines in bat numbers. There have been several initiatives to reduce hunting pressure and conserve threatened bat species, mainly on islands that, when sustained, have been successful. More education projects and community-based conservation initiatives should be encouraged together with further attempts at sustainable harvesting in situations where disease risk has been evaluated.

A growing literature argues for evidence-based conservation. This concept reflects a wider approach to policy-making and follows thinking in medicine, in which rigorous, objective analysis of evidence has contributed to widespread improvements in medical outcomes. Clearly, conservation decisions should be informed by the best information available. However, we identify issues relating to the type and sources of evidence commonly used and the way evidence-based conservation studies frame policy debate. In this paper we discuss two issues; firstly, we ask ‘what counts as evidence?’ (what is meant by evidence, and what kind of evidence is given credibility). We conclude that evidence-based conservation should adopt a broad definition of evidence to give meaningful space for qualitative data, and local and indigenous knowledge. Secondly, we ask ‘how does evidence count?’ (the relationship between evidence and the policy-making process). We conclude that there should be greater recognition that policy-making is a complex and messy process, and that the role of evidence in policy making can never be neutral. In the light of these issues we suggest some changes to build on developing practice under the title evidence-informed conservation. The change in terminology is subtle, yet it has profound implications in that it calls for a re-positioning and re-understanding of conservation science as one source of information among many for decision-makers.

All six great apes, gorillas Gorilla gorilla and G. beringei, chimpanzees Pan troglodytes and P. paniscus, and orang-utans Pongo pygmaeus and P. abelii, are categorized as Endangered on the 2000 IUCN Red List and face many threats to their continued existence in the wild. These threats include loss of habitat to settlement, logging and agriculture, illegal hunting for bushmeat and traditional medicine, the live ape trade, civil unrest and infectious diseases. The great apes are highly susceptible to many human diseases, some of which can be fatal while others can cause marked morbidity. There is increasing evidence that diseases can be transmitted from humans to free-living habituated apes, sometimes with serious consequences. If protective measures are not improved, ape populations that are frequently in close contact with people will eventually be affected by the inadvertent transmission of human diseases. This paper describes the risks, sources and circumstances of infectious disease transmission from humans to great apes during and consequent upon habituation for tourism and research. A major problem is that the regulations that protect habituated apes from the transmission of disease from people are often poorly enforced. Suggestions are made for improving the enforcement of existing regulations governing ape-based tourism, and for minimizing the risk of disease transmission between humans, both local people and international visitors, and the great apes.

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) are emerging worldwide as important mechanisms to align investments in human and natural well-being. PES projects are often defined as voluntary transactions where well-defined environmental/ecosystem services (or land uses likely to secure those services) are bought by a minimum of one service buyer, from a minimum of one service provider, if and only if the service provider continuously secures service provision (conditionality). Further criteria of PES include limiting additional objectives and ensuring that payments reward behaviour that would otherwise not occur (additionality). Together these best practices for PES are increasingly accepted as the most efficient means to achieve desired outcomes and are guiding funding for PES projects. We used a series of water funds (watershed-oriented PES projects based on a trust fund model) to examine how theoretical best practices could inform and improve practice and also how theory could learn from practical efforts. We conclude that thoughtful consideration is required when evaluating the promise of a PES approach against a theoretical ideal. We found that requiring conditionality may limit the use of creative finance mechanisms such as trust funds that can provide long-term benefits for conservation and human well-being, and that requiring additionality can exclude benefits from social diffusion and result in the inefficient targeting of PES funds. Finally, public–private partnerships in water funds lead to multiple additional/side objectives but partnerships are likely to lower transaction costs and provide transparent, long-term landscape-scale watershed management.

Madagascar is renowned not only for its high biodiversity and high degree of endemism, but also for ongoing loss of the original primary vegetation. Here we draw attention to the critical degree of vulnerability of Madagascar's littoral forest, western dry deciduous forest, and evergreen forests of the high plateau. Conservation efforts in these forest formations have been low compared to those in the evergreen rainforest of eastern Madagascar. Due to their fragmented nature these ecosystems urgently require reinforced conservation programmes.

Livestock depredation has implications for conservation and agronomy; it can be costly for farmers and can prompt retaliatory killing of carnivores. Lethal control measures are readily available and are reportedly perceived to be cheaper, more practical and more effective than non-lethal methods. However, the costs and efficacy of lethal vs non-lethal approaches have rarely been compared formally. We conducted a 3-year study on 11 South African livestock farms, examining costs and benefits of lethal and non-lethal conflict mitigation methods. Farmers used existing lethal control in the first year and switched to guardian animals (dogs Canis familiaris and alpacas Lama pacos) or livestock protection collars for the following 2 years. During the first year the mean cost of livestock protection was USD 3.30 per head of stock and the mean cost of depredation was USD 20.11 per head of stock. In the first year of non-lethal control the combined implementation and running costs were similar to those of lethal control (USD 3.08 per head). However, the mean cost of depredation decreased by 69.3%, to USD 6.52 per head. In the second year of non-lethal control the running costs (USD 0.43 per head) were significantly lower than in previous years and depredation costs decreased further, to USD 5.49 per head. Our results suggest that non-lethal methods of human–wildlife conflict mitigation can reduce depredation and can be economically advantageous compared to lethal methods of predator control.

Most species of marine turtle breed every two or more years and it is the norm for females to lay more than one clutch of eggs within a nesting season. Knowing the interval between breeding seasons and the clutch frequency (number of clutches laid by an individual in a breeding season) of females allows us to assess the status of a nesting population. At Alagadi Beach, Northern Cyprus, over a period of 6 years (1995–2000), we attributed 96% of green Chelonia mydas and 80% of loggerhead Caretta caretta turtle clutches to known individual females. This intensive level of monitoring enabled us to estimate the clutch frequency for both species. Using four different methods we estimated clutch frequency to be 2.9–3.1 clutches per female for green turtles and 1.8–2.2 clutches per female for loggerhead turtles. The median interval between nesting seasons for green turtles was 3 years, and for loggerhead turtles it was 2 years. Utilizing these parameters and available data from other beaches that are monitored regularly, we estimate that there are 2,280–2,787 logger-head and 339–360 green turtles nesting annually at these sites in the Mediterranean. This highlights the Critically Endangered status of this population of green turtles. Furthermore, as conventional beach patrols underestimate clutch frequency, these population estimates are likely to be optimistic.

In the 2003 Durban Vision the Malagasy government committed to tripling the amount of protected areas in Madagascar by 2009. This extensive expansion needs to involve an assessment of the potential impacts on the people who rely on forest resources for subsistence. Wildlife for human consumption (bushmeat) is one such resource that has received great attention on mainland Africa but has largely been ignored in Madagascar until recently. In terms of biomass, hunting in Madagascar appears to be on a lesser scale compared to areas of mainland Africa. However, because of the life-history characteristics associated with hunted primate and carnivore species in Madagascar even small-scale hunting is a major threat to long-term conservation. In this study I used semi-structured interviews to quantify annual rates of bushmeat harvest in 14 villages adjacent to the Makira Forest in north-eastern Madagascar. Interviews revealed that 23 mammal species were hunted for consumption, providing a new insight into the scale and frequency of bushmeat use. Harvest data and life-history information were sufficient to allow quantitative assessments of sustainability for four species of lemur (black and white ruffed lemur Varecia variegata, indri Indri indri, eastern bamboo lemur Hapalemur griseus and white-fronted brown lemur Eulemur albifrons) and a species of the carnivore family Eupleridae (fossa Cryptoprocta ferox). Model results suggest hunting of these species is probably unsustainable. This research presents clear evidence that hunting is a major conservation and livelihoods issue in Madagascar and needs to be considered in the planning stages of protected area development to address better the needs of local people.

Within the last few years three key concerns have come to dominate the conservation-poverty debate: (1) the activities and accountability of big international conservation NGOs, and their impacts on local communities; (2) the increasingly protectionist focus of conservation policy and the implications for communities resident in and around protected areas, in particular regarding involuntary displacements and evictions; (3) the lack of attention to biodiversity conservation on the development agenda, with the current focus on poverty reduction. The roots of these different strands of the debate lie in much older discussions of the links between environment and development. There have been periods of convergence, especially around issues of sustainable development, participation and decentralization during the 1980s and 1990s. There have also been periods of divergence, in particular the disenchantment with community-based approaches to conservation and the prioritization of poverty over environment, during the 1990s and 2000s. Reactions to the outcomes of the 2003 World Parks Congress brought the three strands of the modern debate to a head. Ongoing discussions around these strands continue at a different pace but the debate appears to be moving fastest on biodiversity's place within the development agenda, although concerns over biodiversity remain marginal compared to the current focus on climate change. But it is within the climate change agenda, and particularly the escalation of discussions around reduced emissions from deforestation, that the next formulations of the conservation-poverty debate are likely to develop.

Recently, conservation estate in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province has increased 10-fold resulting in large predators being increasingly reintroduced to restore ecological integrity and maximize tourism. We describe the reintroductions of large carnivores (>10 kg) that have occurred in the Eastern Cape and use various criteria to assess their success. Lion Panthera leo reintroduction has been highly successful with a population of 56 currently extant in the region and problems of overpopulation arising. The African wild dog Lycaon pictus population has increased to 24 from a founder population of 11. Preliminary results for spotted hyaenas Crocuta crocuta also indicate success. Wild populations of leopards Panthera pardus exist on several reserves and have been supplemented by translocated individuals, although deaths of known individuals have occurred and no estimate of reproduction is available. Cheetah Acinonyx jubatus reintroduction has also been less successful with 36 individuals reintroduced and 23 cubs being born but only 41 individuals surviving in 2005. Criteria for assessing the success of reintroductions of species that naturally occur in low densities, such as top predators, generally have limited value. Carrying capacity for large predators is unknown and continued monitoring and intensive management will be necessary in enclosed, and possibly all, conservation areas in the Eastern Cape to ensure conservation success.

Considerable resources and efforts have been directed at biodiversity conservation in recent years, but measures of the success of conservation programmes have been limited. Based on information on population sizes, trends, threatening processes and the nature and intensity of conservation actions implemented during 1994–2004, we assessed that 16 bird species would have probably become extinct during this period if conservation programmes for them had not been undertaken. The mean minimum population size of these 16 species increased from 34 to 147 breeding individuals during 1994–2004. In 1994, 63% of them had declining populations but by 2004, 81% were increasing. Most of these species (63%) are found on islands. The principal threats that led to their decline were habitat loss and degradation (88%), invasive species (50%) and exploitation (38%), a pattern similar to that for other threatened species, but with exploitation and invasive species being relatively more important. The principal actions carried out were habitat protection and management (75% of species), control of invasive species (50%), and captive breeding and release (33%). The 16 species represent only 8.9% of those currently classified as Critically Endangered, and 1.3% of those threatened with extinction. Many of these additional species slipped closer to extinction during 1994–2004, including 164 that deteriorated in status sufficiently to be uplisted to higher categories of extinction risk on the IUCN Red List (IUCN, 2006). Efforts need to be considerably scaled up to prevent many more extinctions in the coming decades. The knowledge and tools to achieve this are available, but we need to mobilize the resources and political will to apply them.

In this study we surveyed all trees ≥10 cm diameter at breast height within 20 0.1 ha plots in a 3,500 ha forest fragment, surrounded by sugar cane fields, of the Brazilian Atlantic forest to compare tree species assemblages at the forest edge (0–100 m into forest) vs forest interior (>200 m). Plots were perpendicular to the margin. The mean number of tree species was significantly higher in the forest interior (35.4 ± SD 7.1 vs 18.4 ± SD 4.4). In addition, forest edge differed from interior in the proportion of shade-tolerant, emergent, large/very large-fruited species, and large-seeded tree species. Among the 134 tree species recorded, 24% were exclusive to the forest edge and 57% to the forest interior. Our results suggest that both the current system of protected areas and archipelagos of small fragments (1) tend to retain only a subset of the original flora, (2) will converge in terms of floristic and ecological composition (biotic simplification and homogenization), and (3) will lose rare and threatened tree species.

The institutional arrangements governing forests will be a critical factor in reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) as part of the global effort to mitigate climate change. A growing body of empirical research demonstrates how local forest governance can be as, if not more, effective than centralized state-based regimes. Local forest governance can secure improvements in multiple forest outcomes such as biomass and carbon storage and livelihoods contributions for the poor, and it can do so at lower cost than is possible through centralized governance. Many national governments have implicitly recognized these findings in their pursuit of decentralized forest governance and in strengthening local rights and capacities to use and manage forests. However, such reforms are often politically resisted, particularly where the value of forest resources is high and central government bodies are able to capture the majority of benefits. Ongoing negotiations related to the design and delivery of REDD policy and practice must take into account both the importance of local forest governance arrangements and the political–economic barriers to devolving secure rights over forests to local communities. These political dimensions of forest tenure and policy create a paradox for REDD: increasing the value of forest resources through global carbon markets without attending to local governance and rights will create political incentives towards centralized governance, which could lead to greater forest loss and lower forest-related benefits for the poor.

The number of free ranging African lions Panthera leo has never been comprehensively assessed. We present an inventory of available information, covering most protected areas and ranging in quality from educated guesses to individually known populations. This gives a conservative estimate of 16,500–30,000 free ranging lions in Africa. The inventory shows that populations are small and fragmented in West and Central Africa, whereas the species still occurs widely in East and Southern Africa. The results concur with the current IUCN Red List categorization of the lion as Vulnerable.

Crop raiding by elephants is widespread across Africa and Asia. Although many traditional and novel methods are used to defend farms there have been few rigorous tests of their efficacy. We provide a comparative quantitative assessment of a range of farm-based mitigation methods implemented during a 4-year project in Transmara District, Kenya. Five experimental trials were established to measure changes in crop raiding after the application of mitigation methods on treatment farms compared with control farms. A combination of early warning to detect elephants before they entered farms, coupled with a front line communal guarding strategy, proved most successful. Non-electrified barriers were expensive and generally ineffective. However, chilli Capsicum spp. grease applied to rope barriers encircling farms completely deterred elephants. Although encouraging, these results require more widespread testing and demonstration to ensure their effectiveness at broader scales.

This study investigates the attitude of communities adjacent to the Chobe National Park in Botswana and the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia with regard to local stewardship over natural resources and associated revenues implemented via community based natural resource management (CBNRM). This included measuring the extent to which community expectations were met. The survey revealed a general incongruence between community perceptions and expectations of the purpose and roles of the Community Resource Boards in Luangwa and the Community Trusts in Chobe and those of the respective wildlife authorities. After 2 decades of implementation there appears to be significant confusion among communities regarding CBNRM that seems to translate into unfulfilled expectations and frustrations. These factors highlight inadequacies in implementation with regard to outreach and inclusion.

We used remote cameras to obtain information on an elusive species and to examine the effects of different camera trapping methodologies on abundance estimates. We determined activity pattern, trail use, trap success, and density of ocelot Leopardus pardalis in seven camera-trap surveys across two habitat types in western Belize: tropical broad-leaf rainforest and tropical pine forest. Ocelots in the rainforest were active mostly at night, in particular immediately after sunset, and they travelled on low-use roads (especially in the wet season) and high-use roads (especially in the dry season) more than established and newly cut trails. Trap success was relatively high in the rainforest (2.11–6.20 captures per 100 trap nights) and low in the pine forest (0.13–0.15 captures per 100 trap nights). Camera trapping combined with mark-recapture statistics gave densities of 25.82–25.88 per 100 km2 in the broad-leaf versus 2.31–3.80 per 100 km2 in the pine forest. Density estimates increased when animals repeatedly captured at the same camera (zero-distance moved animals) were included in the buffer size analysis. Density estimates were significantly negatively correlated with distance between cameras. We provide information on ocelot population status from an unstudied portion of its range and advise that camera trap methodologies be standardized to permit comparisons across sites.

Forest certification provides a means by which producers who meet stringent sustainable forestry standards can identify their products in the marketplace, allowing them to potentially receive greater market access and higher prices for their products. An examination of the ways in which certification may contribute to biodiversity conservation leads to the following conclusions: 1) the process of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certification generates improvements to management with respect to the value of managed forests for biodiversity. 2) Current incentives are not sufficient to attract the majority of producers to seek certification, particularly in tropical countries where the costs of improving management to meet FSC guidelines are significantly greater than any market benefits they may receive; available incentives are even less capable of convincing forest owners to retain forest cover and produce certified timber on a sustainable basis, rather than deforesting their lands for timber and agriculture. 3) At present, current volumes of certified forest products are insufficient to reduce demand to log high conservation value forests. If FSC certification is to make greater inroads, particularly in tropical countries, significant investments will be needed both to increase the benefits and reduce the costs of certification. Conservation investors will need to carefully consider the biodiversity benefits that will be generated from such investments, versus the benefits generated from investing in more traditional approaches to biodiversity conservation.