Delegated protected area management (transferring management responsibilities from a public to a private partner) has been promoted to give impetus to ailing protected areas in West and Central Africa. Since their inception in 2005, the number of partnerships has increased to 20 protected areas covering c. 250,000 km2, an area similar to that of the UK. A review of the lessons learnt from these first 15 years shows that delegated management has improved day-to-day management of these protected areas. There remain, however, challenges with funding and with the capacity of national managerial staff, and also concerns regarding human rights. Based on an analysis of these challenges, I develop five recommendations to guide more mature delegated management: governments should (1) ensure an enabling legal–procedural environment; and (2) prepare delegated management contracts systematically; (3) private partners should render themselves dispensable through capacity building of national managerial staff and by initiating sustainable financing mechanisms; (4) governments and private partners alike should respect human rights and build coalitions with communities; (5) governments, private partners and funders should strive to delegate non-core management tasks, such as tourist guiding and reception, community development and research, to specialized locally-based individuals and organizations. Although these recommendations have a specific West–Central African perspective, they have relevance for the increasing number of delegated management initiatives elsewhere in Africa and beyond.

Carnivore population declines are a time-sensitive global challenge in which mitigating decreasing populations requires alignment of applied practice and research priorities. However, large carnivore conservation is hindered by gaps among research, conservation practice and policy formation. One potential driver of this research–implementation gap is research bias towards charismatic species. Using depredation of livestock by large carnivores in sub-Saharan Africa as a case study, we examined whether taxonomic bias could be detected and explored the potential effects of such a bias on the research–implementation gap. Via a literature review, we compared the central large carnivore species in research to the species identified as the primary livestock depredator. We detected a substantial misalignment between these factors for two species. Spotted hyaenas Crocuta crocuta were the most common depredator of livestock (58.5% of studies), but were described as a central species among only 20.7% of the studies. In comparison, African lions Panthera leo were the most common central species (45% of studies) but were the primary depredator in just 24.4% of studies. Such patterns suggest that taxonomic bias is prevalent within this research. Although spotted hyaenas may depredate livestock most often, their low charisma in comparison to sympatric species such as the African lion and leopard Panthera pardus may be limiting research-informed conservation efforts for them. Efforts to mitigate human-carnivore conflict designed for one species may not be applicable to another co-occurring species, and thus, taxonomic bias could undermine the efficacy of interventions built to reduce livestock depredation by carnivores.

The largest colony of Cory's shearwater Calonectris borealis nests on the island of Selvagem Grande in the north-eastern Atlantic. In 2002, a programme of eradication was conducted to remove two alien invasive mammals, the house mouse Mus musculus and European rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus. Preliminary studies recorded beneficial effects of the eradications for a variety of plant and animal species, including Cory's shearwater. We recorded fledging rates of shearwaters for 1982–2001, prior to the eradication, and for 2002–2020, after the eradication, from two quadrats, each containing 134–329 nest sites. Although there was annual fluctuation in fledging rates in the quadrats, the mean rate of 40.74 ±SD 3.92 fledglings per 100 nest sites for the two quadrats combined prior to the eradication of mammals increased significantly, to 52.88 ± SD 5.03 per 100 nest sites, after the eradications. Because the two mammals were removed synchronously it is difficult to know which factors depressed fledging of Cory's shearwaters on Selvagem Grande. However, the predatory behaviour of house mice on other oceanic islands, and the fact that increased fledging was seen soon after the eradications occurred, suggest predation by house mice on shearwater hatchlings was the main cause of losses.

Begonia jocelinoi Brade (Begoniaceae) is a threatened species, endemic to a small locality in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. The species was formerly listed as Wanted in the Red List of Endemic Flora of the state of Rio de Janeiro because it had not been recorded since 1953. After evaluating herbarium collections and conducting fieldwork during May 2019–February 2020, we report the rediscovery of a single population of 65 reproductive individuals of B. jocelinoi, along with numerous seedlings, besides a trail in Itatiaia National Park. This Park is an IUCN category II protected area that permits some tourism activities. Some individuals of B. jocelinoi showed signs of pruning following the maintenance of the trail. We recommend strategies for in situ and ex situ conservation of this narrowly endemic species, including provision of advice to tourists regarding the occurrence of threatened species, and diversion of the trail where the species occurs.

The distribution of the Vulnerable West Indian manatee Trichechus manatus is influenced by physical and environmental factors such as water salinity, temperature and depth, freshwater supply and the availability of food resources. In Brazil, information on the habitat use of this species is insufficient for effective conservation. Here, we monitored manatees that had been found stranded as calves, rehabilitated in captivity and subsequently released, to identify their home ranges and examine their adaptation to life in the wild. The study, which involved monitoring six manatees using satellite and VHF telemetry systems, was conducted during 2016–2019 in the states of Paraíba, Sergipe and Bahia in north-eastern Brazil. Home range size of individuals was 2.56–42.07 km2 and all fidelity sites (areas used most frequently) were within protected areas. The longest distance travelled from the coastline upriver was 14.24 km and the longest distance offshore was 0.93 km. There were no significant differences in home range data between the dry and rainy seasons, but there was significant difference between the sexes, with males travelling across larger areas than females. All but one of the six individuals met the majority of indicators established in the Brazilian Manatee Reintroduction Protocol, and thus were considered to have successfully adapted to the wild. Our study provides information on patterns of habitat use and areas intensely used by manatees, which can assist protected area managers in defining priority areas for manatee conservation in Brazil.

Human activity in African tropical rainforests continues to threaten wild mammals. Many rural communities are dependent on hunting, yet there is a widespread lack of baseline data on ecology and the sustainability of hunting. We investigated the impacts of human activity on mammal species composition and distributions within a community forest surrounding a village in the buffer zone of the Dja Biosphere Reserve in south-east Cameroon. We conducted a camera-trap survey in August–November 2017 and detected 24 mammal species, including Critically Endangered western lowland gorilla Gorilla gorilla gorilla, Endangered central African chimpanzee Pan troglodytes troglodytes and Endangered tree pangolin Phataginus tricuspis. We used occupancy analysis to explore relationships between indicators of human activity (distance to a road and the Reserve), habitat quality (distance to the river and tree cover) and the distributions of species. We found that the local distribution of threatened mammals was not apparently limited by human activity, and proximity to the road did not negatively influence occupancy for any species. However, most of the Reserve's large species were not detected, including the African forest elephant Loxodonta cyclotis and the largest ungulates, and the occupancy of two species commonly hunted for wild meat was positively correlated with distance from the village, indicating hunting may be unsustainable. Our results show that the community forest provides habitat for threatened species outside the Reserve and in close proximity to people. However, effective conservation management will require continued monitoring and research to determine whether current rates of hunting are sustainable.