There is evidence from the development and humanitarian sectors that purposeful engagement of women can increase the impact of development. We conducted a literature review to examine whether this is also evident in conservation and natural resource management. The following themes emerged from our review: existing societal and cultural norms affect and generally limit how women can engage in conservation and natural resource management; women interact differently with the environment than men, so if they are excluded, their knowledge and perspectives on particular resources may not be considered in conservation actions; and there is often a lack of resources or dedicated effort by conservation or natural resource management programmes to understand and address the barriers that prevent women's engagement. Although there was evidence of a positive relationship between the engagement of women and environmental outcomes, some studies showed that positive conservation outcomes do not necessarily benefit women, and when women are not considered, conservation activities can perpetuate existing inequities. We conclude that although the importance of integrating gender into conservation is acknowledged in the literature, there is a need to examine how women can be meaningfully engaged in conservation. This must go beyond treating women as a homogenous group, to consider intersectionality including race, ethnicity, age, religion, poverty and disability. In addition, conservation and natural resource management institutions need to address the inclusion of women in their own staff and programmes.

Research into the relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being, including poverty alleviation, has blossomed. However, little is known about who has produced this knowledge, what collaborative patterns and institutional and funding conditions have underpinned it, or what implications these matters may have. To investigate the potential implications of such production for conservation science and practice, we address this by developing a social network analysis of the most prolific writers in the production of knowledge about ecosystem services and poverty alleviation. We show that 70% of these authors are men, most are trained in either the biological sciences or economics and almost none in the humanities. Eighty per cent of authors obtained their PhD from universities in the EU or the USA, and they are currently employed in these regions. The co-authorship network is strongly collaborative, without dominant authors, and with the top 30 most cited scholars being based in the USA and co-authoring frequently. These findings suggest, firstly, that the production of knowledge on ecosystem services and poverty alleviation research has the same geographical and gender biases that characterize knowledge production in other scientific areas and, secondly, that there is an expertise bias that also characterizes other environmental matters. This is despite the fact that the research field of ecosystem services and poverty alleviation, by its nature, requires a multidisciplinary lens. This could be overcome through promoting more extensive collaboration and knowledge co-production.

Hunting is a primary driver of biodiversity loss across South-east Asia. Within Cambodia, the use of wire snares to capture wildlife is a severe threat in protected areas but there have been few studies of the behaviour of hunters from local communities. Here, we combine the unmatched count technique with direct questioning to estimate the prevalence of hunting behaviours and wildlife consumption amongst 705 households living within Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, Cambodia. We assessed respondents’ knowledge of rules, and their perceptions of patrols responsible for enforcing rules. Estimates of hunting behaviour were variable: results from the unmatched count technique were inconclusive, and direct questioning revealed 9% of households hunted, and 20% set snares around farms to prevent wildlife eating crops. Hunting with domestic dogs was the method most commonly used to catch wildlife (87% of households owned dogs). Wild meat was consumed by 84% of households, and was most frequently bought or caught, but also gifted. We detected a high awareness of conservation rules, but low awareness of punishments and penalties, with wildlife depletion, rather than the risk of being caught by patrols, causing the greatest reduction in hunting. Our findings demonstrate the challenges associated with reliably estimating rule-breaking behaviour and highlight the need to incorporate careful triangulation into study design.

In northern Cambodia, threatened wildlife, livestock and people are being poisoned by pesticides deposited in seasonal waterholes. Addressing this critical conservation threat requires understanding the drivers of poisoning behaviours and the social contexts in which they occur. This study across 10 communities in two protected areas aimed to provide a first assessment of this phenomenon. We used the theory of planned behaviour to measure socio-psychological determinants of behaviour and deepened this understanding using informant interviews and focus group discussions. Informants reported that so-called termite poisons, including powerful carbamates, are deliberately deposited at waterholes to catch wildlife for consumption. This method is perceived to be low effort and high efficacy, and perceptions of the health risks vary. Predominant users are young men and children, but it is unclear whether the practice is related to food insecurity. Threatened wildlife species reported as affected include the giant ibis Pseudibis gigantea and vulture species. Overall, social norms are strongly negative towards poisoning; 75% of survey respondents perceived negative norms because of impacts on human and livestock health, environmental quality, and risks of legal sanctions. This has led to interventions by local authorities in half of the studied villages. We suggest that future interventions should raise the salience of negative norms by providing a non-conflictual mechanism for community members to participate in monitoring and sanctioning, such as a reporting hotline. Regulatory interventions are also required to control the supply of restricted pesticides.

Ex situ conservation of species is risky and expensive, but it can prevent extinction when in situ conservation fails. We used the IUCN Guidelines on the Use of Ex Situ Management for Species Conservation to evaluate whether to begin ex situ conservation for the South-east Asian subspecies of Bengal florican Houbaropsis bengalensis blandini, which is predicted to be extinct in the wild within 5 years. To inform our decision, we developed a decision tree, and used a demographic model to evaluate the probability of establishing a captive population under a range of husbandry scenarios and egg harvest regimes, and compared this with the probability of the wild population persisting. The model showed that if ex situ conservation draws on international best practice in bustard husbandry there is a high probability of establishing a captive population, but the wild population is unlikely to persist. We identified and evaluated the practical risks associated with ex situ conservation, and documented our plans to mitigate them. Modelling shows that it is unlikely that birds could be released within 20–30 years, by which time genetic, morphological and behavioural changes in the captive population, combined with habitat loss and extinction of the wild population, make it unlikely that Bengal florican could be released into a situation approximating their current wild state. We considered the philosophical and practical implications through a decision tree so that our decision to begin ex situ management is not held back by our preconceived notions of what it means to be wild.

Tropical forest hotspots have a high diversity of species but have lost > 70% of their original vegetation cover and are characterized by a multitude of small and isolated fragments. Paradoxically, conservation actions in these areas are still mainly focused on protection of large tracts of forests, a strategy now infeasible because of the small area of forest remnants. Here we use the Vulnerable black-handed titi monkey Callicebus melanochir as a model to study the effects of habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation on arboreal mammals and to provide insights for science-driven conservation in fragmented landscapes in tropical forest hotspots. We surveyed 38 Atlantic Forest fragments in Bahia State, Brazil and assessed the effects of patch area, quality and visibility, and landscape connectivity on the occurrence of our model species. Patch area was the single best model explaining species occurrence. Nonetheless, patch quality and visibility, and landscape connectivity, positively affect occurrence. In addition to patch area, patch quality, patch visibility and landscape connectivity are useful for predicting the occurrence of arboreal mammals in the fragments of tropical forest hotspots. We encourage the assessment of habitat quality (based on remotely sensed vegetation indices) and habitat visibility (based on digital elevation models) to improve discoverability of arboreal mammal populations and selection of fragments for conservation purposes across fragmented landscapes of tropical forest hotspots. Large remnants of tropical forest hotspots are scarce and therefore we require baseline data to support conservation actions and management in small forest fragments.

We tested if peer-reviewed conservation research output has increased in sub-Saharan African countries over the last 30 years in response to increased development. We carried out a bibliometric analysis to identify the number of conservation research papers published by national authors of 41 sub-Saharan African countries during 1987–2017, to provide an index of national conservation research output. We identified country-specific development factors influencing these totals, using general linear modelling. There were positive relationships between conservation research output and population size, GDP, literacy rate, international tourism receipts and population growth rate, and negative relationships with urban population and agricultural land cover, in total explaining 77% of variation. Thirty-eight per cent of countries contributed < 30 conservation research papers (of 12,701) in 30 years. Analysis of trends in primary authorship in a random subsample of 2,374 of these papers showed that primary authorship by sub-Saharan African authors has increased significantly over time but is now at a lower rate than primary authorship for authors from countries outside the country associated with the search term, usually a European or North American country. Overall, 46% of papers had national primary authors, but 67% of these were South African. The results show that conservation research output in sub-Saharan Africa overall is increasing but only significantly in a few countries, and is still dominated by non-national scientists, probably as a result of a lack of socio-economic development.

The northern bald ibis Geronticus eremita was once widespread throughout the Middle East, northern Africa, and southern and central Europe. Habitat destruction, persecution and the impacts of pesticides have led to its disappearance from most of its former range. It disappeared from central Europe > 400 years ago, but has persisted as a relict and slowly growing breeding population in Morocco, where c. 700 wild birds of all ages remain. In Algeria, the last confirmed breeding was in 1984; in Turkey the fully wild population disappeared in 1989, but a population remains in semi-wild conditions. In Syria a small population was rediscovered in 2002, only to subsequently decline to functional extinction. Restoration programmes have been initiated independently in several locations, with over 300 free-flying birds resulting from reintroduction projects in Austria, Germany, Spain and Turkey, to restore both sedentary and fully migratory populations. Maintaining current efforts in Morocco remains a high conservation priority.

As an evolutionary lineage cycads are rare, and the extinction risk is high for many species. The genus Ceratozamia, one of the most diverse in Mexico, is experiencing drastic reductions of its habitat. Ceratozamia is widely distributed along the Sierra Madre Oriental, a complex mountain range, in a region characterized by high ecological and cultural diversity. Since 1990, various conservation and management strategies have been applied to this taxon in Mexico but evidence for the effectiveness of these measures is lacking. Ceratozamia in the Mexican Sierra Madre Oriental is highly diverse and endemic, offering a model for analysing geographical distribution patterns with ecological niche modelling. It also presents an opportunity for assessing the success of conservation and management strategies that have been implemented in this area. Here, we examined three aspects that are considered fundamental for the development and evaluation of conservation strategies: (1) taxonomy, (2) ecology and (3) sociocultural anthropology. Our findings suggest a pessimistic outlook for the long-term survival of Ceratozamia species in their natural environment, indicating the need to review the current IUCN Cycad Action Plan for the genus. To improve the protection of Ceratozamia and other taxonomic and/or ecological assemblages, we encourage a multidisciplinary approach, with increased collaboration between natural and social scientists.