The Asian tapir Tapirus indicus is the only tapir species in Southeast Asia. It is declining across its range and is categorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. The forests of Sumatra are critical to Asian tapir conservation as they contain some of the last remaining populations of the species, yet conservation efforts are hindered by a lack of information on habitat suitability. We collated camera-trap data from nine landscapes across 69,500 km2 of Sumatran rainforest to help predict suitable habitat for Asian tapirs on the island. Predictions from Bayesian occupancy models demonstrated that tapir occupancy was greatest in forests below 600 m elevation and exclusively in forests with high aboveground biomass. Forests around the Barisan Mountains on the west of Sumatra provide the most suitable habitat for the species. Only 36% of the most critical habitat (i.e. 80th percentile of predicted occupancy values, or above) for tapirs is formally protected for conservation, with much of the remainder found in forests allocated to watershed protection (35%) or logging (23%). We highlight several key areas in Sumatra where tapir conservation could be bolstered, such as by leveraging existing conservation efforts for other charismatic flagships species on the island.

Area-based conservation is a widely used approach for maintaining biodiversity, and there are ongoing discussions over what is an appropriate global conservation area coverage target. To inform such debates, it is necessary to know the extent and ecological representativeness of the current conservation area network, but this is hampered by gaps in existing global datasets. In particular, although data on privately and community-governed protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures are often available at the national level, it can take many years to incorporate these into official datasets. This suggests a complementary approach is needed based on selecting a sample of countries and using their national-scale datasets to produce more accurate metrics. However, every country added to the sample increases the costs of data collection, collation and analysis. To address this, here we present a data collection framework underpinned by a spatial prioritization algorithm, which identifies a minimum set of countries that are also representative of 10 factors that influence conservation area establishment and biodiversity patterns. We then illustrate this approach by identifying a representative set of sampling units that cover 10% of the terrestrial realm, which included areas in only 25 countries. In contrast, selecting 10% of the terrestrial realm at random included areas across a mean of 162 countries. These sampling units could be the focus of future data collation on different types of conservation area. Analysing these data could produce more rapid and accurate estimates of global conservation area coverage and ecological representativeness, complementing existing international reporting systems.

The modern era of wildlife and protected area conservation in Nepal began in 1973 with the passage of comprehensive legislation, and has evolved very quickly as new priorities and problems have emerged. Here we explore the legal and managerial development of conservation areas, a recently-defined category of protected area designed to promote conservation through local-level participation and development. A review of the Conservation Area Management Regulations of 1996 shows that there are several potential problems inherent in this designation. As written, the regulations move power from the government to organizations under governmental contract. Thus, management authority largely remains top-down from the standpoint of local users. We also question how well the designation will protect some sensitive wildlife species, since organizations do not have law enforcement authority under Nepalese legislation.

Despite these concerns, there have been several successful conservation area programmes in existence in Nepal since the 1980s and most of the issues addressed are surmountable with the current regulations, providing that several criteria are met. We propose that His Majesty's Government and organizations under contract develop more definitive methods of disbursing funds for local-level projects, and institute social impact assessments. In addition, more attention must be paid to wildlife law enforcement; independent assessments of important wild populations and unique habitats are needed. Finally, we discuss some broader issues that should be better addressed in Nepal and elsewhere, including cross-sectoral coordination within the government.