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Capacity development is critical to long-term conservation success, yet we lack a robust and rigorous understanding of how well its effects are being evaluated. A comprehensive summary of who is monitoring and evaluating capacity development interventions, what is being evaluated and how, would help in the development of evidence-based guidance to inform design and implementation decisions for future capacity development interventions and evaluations of their effectiveness. We built an evidence map by reviewing peer-reviewed and grey literature published since 2000, to identify case studies evaluating capacity development interventions in biodiversity conservation and natural resource management. We used inductive and deductive approaches to develop a coding strategy for studies that met our criteria, extracting data on the type of capacity development intervention, evaluation methods, data and analysis types, categories of outputs and outcomes assessed, and whether the study had a clear causal model and/or used a systems approach. We found that almost all studies assessed multiple outcome types: most frequent was change in knowledge, followed by behaviour, then attitude. Few studies evaluated conservation outcomes. Less than half included an explicit causal model linking interventions to expected outcomes. Half of the studies considered external factors that could influence the efficacy of the capacity development intervention, and few used an explicit systems approach. We used framework synthesis to situate our evidence map within the broader literature on capacity development evaluation. Our evidence map (including a visual heat map) highlights areas of low and high representation in investment in research on the evaluation of capacity development.

A hundred research priorities of critical importance to protected area management were identified by a targeted survey of conservation professionals; half researchers and half practitioners. Respondents were selected to represent a range of disciplines, every continent except Antarctica and roughly equal numbers of men and women. The results analysed thematically and grouped as potential research topics as by both practitioners and researchers. Priority research gaps reveal a high interest to demonstrate the role of protected areas within a broader discussion about sustainable futures and if and how protected areas can address a range of conservation and socio-economic challenges effectively. The paper lists the hundred priorities structured under broad headings of management, ecology, governance and social (including political and economic issues) and helps contribute to setting future research agendas.

Unsustainable trade in wildlife products both legally and illegally is a leading cause of population declines and increased extinction risk in commercially valuable species. However due to the clandestine nature of illegal trade and paucity of overarching studies of legal trade our understanding on international trade networks is patchy. We develop a gravity–underreporting modelling framework to analyse and compare: (i) data on the legal trade in mammalian, avian and reptilian products from recorded by The Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and (ii) to data on the seizures of illegal products entering the USA between 2004 and 2013. We find substantial differences in the factors driving legal trade for the 3 taxonomic groups considered, indicating different drivers for different product markets. Illegal imports for all groups were associated with increasing exporter GDP. We found higher probabilities of underreporting for avian and reptile products, and in general central Africa, central Asia, Eastern Europe and Pacific Island states showed higher underreporting than other regions, indicating the existence of complex trade networks and the potential for the laundering of illegal products through legal markets. Our results show the important regional and economic trends driving wildlife trade. Our new modelling framework can also help illuminate previously unseen aspects of illegal and legal wildlife trade, which can help with the implementation of interventions to curb the impact of trade on wild populations.

Political and economic transitions have had substantial impacts on forest conservation. Where transitions are underway or anticipated, historical precedent and methods for systematically assessing future trends should be used to anticipate likely threats to forest conservation and design appropriate and prescient policy measures to counteract them. Myanmar is transitioning from an authoritarian, centralized state with a highly regulated economy to a more decentralized and economically liberal democracy and is working to end a long-running civil war. With these transitions in mind, we used a horizon-scanning approach to assess the 40 emerging issues most affecting Myanmar's forests, including internal conflict, land-tenure insecurity, large-scale agricultural development, demise of state timber enterprises, shortfalls in government revenue and capacity, and opening of new deforestation frontiers with new roads, mines, and hydroelectric dams. Averting these threats will require, for example, overhauling governance models, building capacity, improving infrastructure- and energy-project planning, and reforming land-tenure and environmental-protection laws. Although challenges to conservation in Myanmar are daunting, the political transition offers an opportunity for conservationists and researchers to help shape a future that enhances Myanmar's social, economic, and environmental potential while learning and applying lessons from other countries. Our approach and results are relevant to other countries undergoing similar transitions.

Although deforestation and forest degradation have long been considered the most significant threats to tropical biodiversity, across Southeast Asia (Northeast India, Indochina, Sundaland, Philippines) substantial areas of natural habitat have few wild animals (>1 kg), bar a few hunting-tolerant species. To document hunting impacts on vertebrate populations regionally, we conducted an extensive literature review, including papers in local journals and reports of governmental and nongovernmental agencies. Evidence from multiple sites indicated animal populations declined precipitously across the region since approximately 1980, and many species are now extirpated from substantial portions of their former ranges. Hunting is by far the greatest immediate threat to the survival of most of the region's endangered vertebrates. Causes of recent overhunting include improved access to forests and markets, improved hunting technology, and escalating demand for wild meat, wildlife-derived medicinal products, and wild animals as pets. Although hunters often take common species, such as pigs or rats, for their own consumption, they take rarer species opportunistically and sell surplus meat and commercially valuable products. There is also widespread targeted hunting of high-value species. Consequently, as currently practiced, hunting cannot be considered sustainable anywhere in the region, and in most places enforcement of protected-area and protected-species legislation is weak. The international community's focus on cross-border trade fails to address overexploitation of wildlife because hunting and the sale of wild meat is largely a local issue and most of the harvest is consumed in villages, rural towns, and nearby cities. In addition to improved enforcement, efforts to engage hunters and manage wildlife populations through sustainable hunting practices are urgently needed. Unless there is a step change in efforts to reduce wildlife exploitation to sustainable levels, the region will likely lose most of its iconic species, and many others besides, within the next few years.

Southeast (SE) Asia holds high regional biodiversity and endemism levels but is also one of the world's most threatened regions. Local, regional and global threats could have severe consequences for the future survival of many species and the provision of ecosystem services. In the face of myriad pressing environmental problems, we carried out a research prioritisation exercise involving 64 experts whose research relates to conservation biology and sustainability in SE Asia. Experts proposed the most pressing research questions which, if answered, would advance the goals of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development in SE Asia. We received a total of 333 questions through three rounds of elicitation, ranked them (by votes) following a workshop and grouped them into themes. The top 100 questions depict SE Asia as a region where strong pressures on biodiversity interact in complex and poorly understood ways. They point to a lack of information about multiple facets of the environment, while exposing the many threats to biodiversity and human wellbeing. The themes that emerged indicate the need to evaluate specific drivers of biodiversity loss (wildlife harvesting, agricultural expansion, climate change, infrastructure development, pollution) and even to identify which species and habitats are most at risk. They also suggest the need to study the effectiveness of practice-based solutions (protected areas, ecological restoration), the human dimension (social interventions, organisational systems and processes and, the impacts of biodiversity loss and conservation interventions on people). Finally, they highlight gaps in fundamental knowledge of ecosystem function. These 100 questions should help prioritise and coordinate research, conservation, education and outreach activities and the distribution of scarce conservation resources in SE Asia. Accepted version The workshop was funded by a generous donation from Haiyi Holdings Pte Ltd. to the Department of Biological Sciences of the National University of Singapore.

Livestock depredation by highly endangered Amur tigers is a major source of human-tiger conflict in Northeast China. We model livestock depredation risk to understand factors shaping the spatial distribution of depredation conflicts using Hunchun, China as a case study. Ungulate occupancy survey data, presence of ungulate snares and other landscape covariates (such as elevation, slope and tree cover) were first used to model ungulate prey densities using generalised least squares. Predicted densities were then incorporated together with landscape covariates as predictors for actual livestock depredation incidents in a zero-inflated negative binomial model for depredation risk. Lower overall prey densities were associated with proximity to snares, and other anthropogenic-related covariates like distances to villages and roads were also important predictors of prey densities. Depredation conflicts were associated with closer proximity to snares and rivers, greater distances from roads, greater tree cover, and deciduous forest habitats. High-risk areas were found to be concentrated in community-management zones in Hunchun National Nature Reserve (HNR). The results suggest that compensation payments for depredations within HNR provide an unwanted incentive for local people to continue to use the protected area (especially in community co-managed zones) as grazing lands, leading to increased conflict. Eliminating cattle and snaring from HNR and other tiger recovery zones within Northeast China may be essential to reduce conflicts and minimise detrimental impacts on tiger populations.

The view that biodiversity-rich areas partially or largely managed by local residents, sometimes referred to as community-conserved areas (CCAs), can be effective in biological conservation has gained considerable ground over the past decade. In this paper, we review available scientific information on the conservation effectiveness of such areas globally. We compiled studies undertaken during the last 5 years (2004–2009) that use quantifiable ecological attributes to: (1) compare CCAs with strictly protected areas (SPAs); (2) compare CCAs with open-access ecosystems and (3) study trends in biological attributes of CCAs over time. We found that there were few consistent differences in diversity/species richness of flora or fauna protected under the two types of management or in deforestation rates. However, CCAs tend to harbour a species complement distinct from that of SPAs and show lowered abundances of monitored taxa that are of conservation importance. CCAs conserve biological values more effectively than open-access areas. Also, biological values tend to decline in CCAs over time. We conclude that CCAs could represent a significant improvement over open-access areas in terms of conservation effectiveness, yet fall short of the needs of comprehensive biological conservation. While extremely few studies have been undertaken in India, the trends seen largely concur with global ones. This review, based on a limited sample size, is only a beginning, and is expected to serve as an invitation for further research to address both the question of biological effectiveness of diverse forest governance regimes as well as the socio-economic, demographic and institutional reasons underlying these differences.

Garnering support from local people is critical for maintaining ecologically viable and functional protected areas. However, empirical data illustrating local people’s awareness of the importance of nature’s services is limited; hence possibly impeding effective ecosystem (environmental)-services based conservation efforts. Using data from five protected forests in four developing Southeast Asian countries, we provide evidence that local people living near parks value a wide range of environmental services, including cultural, provisioning, and regulating services, provided by the forests. Local people with longer residency valued environmental services more. Educated as well as poor people valued forest ecosystem services more. Conservation education has some influence on people’s environmental awareness. For conservation endeavors to be successful, large-scale transmigration programs should be avoided and local people must be provided with alternative sustenance opportunities and basic education in addition to environmental outreach to reduce their reliance on protected forests and to enhance conservation support.

Hunting for subsistence and trade constitute a major threat to wildlife populations within and outside protected areas in Myanmar. We examined hunting patterns in a forested landscape adjoining the Hkakaborazi National Park in north Myanmar with the aim of generating recommendations to manage hunting. The results described here focus on two issues: the significance of proximity to settlements and markets for prey abundance, and the influence of relative abundance and intrinsic preference on prey offtake. We used strip transect and camera trap surveys to generate relative abundance indices and overall encounter/capture rates for commonly hunted species at four sites that differed in their proximity to settlements and large trading towns. Questionnaires were used to obtain meal records and information on hunting. Encounter and capture rates for hunted species appear to be inversely related to proximity to villages as well as to large, commercial towns. Hunting is indiscriminate, with offtake determined largely by relative abundance rather than intrinsic preference or legislation. Specific management and policy recommendations include the need to monitor the impacts of hunting on vulnerable species, the demarcation of no-take areas, and modification of the legal framework for wildlife conservation.

Myanmar is among the most biologically diverse countries in mainland Southeast Asia. In con- trast to its neighbors, large areas of Myanmar's forest cover remain intact, providing a unique opportunity to conserve biodiversity within protected areas. High levels of deforestation, unrestricted hunting, and destruc- tive agricultural practices have resulted in significant wildlife declines and rapid loss of natural habitats. We analyzed the status of 20 of the 31 officially gazetted protected areas in Myanmar within a framework that classified activities incompatible with protected-area status into two broad categories, small and large scale. Small-scale incompatibilities driven by economic necessity and lack of alternatives for local populations within and adjacent to protected areas occurred more frequently than large-scale incompatibilities driven by larger economic interests. Extraction of nontimber forest products was reported in 85% of the protected areas and ranked highest among the 15 identified incompatibilities. Grazing, hunting, fuelwood extraction, and permanent settlements occurred in more than 50% of the parks surveyed. Forty percent of the protected areas had some infrastructure for reserve management (with significant gaps) but insufficient on-site personnel to adequately perform management activities. Thirty-five percent had approximately half their staff trained in basic field techniques, and 60% had a planning document that was yet to be implemented. Older protected ar- eas were affected by a greater number of incompatibilities than recently established protected areas. Major recommendations include the critical need to address the issue of hunting; involving local communities in the management of protected areas and buffer zones; building the technical capacity of protected-area staff; implementing a comprehensive land-use plan focused on stabilizing land use; and amending existing wildlife laws to fulfill international treaty obligations.

Understanding processes driving population declines and, ultimately, species loss in forest isolates has significant implications for the long-term maintenance of species diversity. We investigated a potential mechanism driving loss of plant species in small, medium, and large land-bridge islands in Lago Guri, a 4300-km2 hydroelectric impoundment in the State of Bolivar, Venezuela. Our hypothesis was that elevated Atta ( leaf-cutter ants) herbivory on small Guri islands, attributable to release from predation, could result in reduced sapling densities, with potentially negative effects on preferred plant species. We experimentally established Atta preferences among 43 common tree species. Vegetation plots on small, medium, and large land masses were examined for variation in density, size-class distribution, and representation of preferred and less preferred species of small stems. Densities of adult trees of preferred and less preferred species were compared between Atta colony foraging zones and control plots without active Atta colonies, and between foraging zones on the small islands and the large island. Small stem densities were significantly reduced on the small islands, especially in the sapling category (≥1 m tall