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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.

Southeast Asia's tropical forests suffer the highest rates of deforestation and disturbance of any on Earth, with poorly understood impacts on native fauna. Asian tapirs (Tapirus indicus) are among the least studied of the large mammals in these forests. Using records from 9 camera trap surveys in 7 of the largest (>1000 km(2) ) protected area complexes, we assessed the influence of environmental variation and human-induced disturbance on tapir occurrence. Tapirs were detected at 13% of locations sampled, significantly associated with evergreen forest (P 40% over the past 20 years. We recommend surveys to fill gaps in the understanding of the status in lesser-known protected areas, research to better understand the fine-scale environmental influences on behavior and habitats of tapirs, and other forest ungulates, and continued legal status for tapirs in the highest category of protection.

Clouded Leopard, Leopard, and Tiger are threatened felids in Southeast Asia, but little is known about the factors in! uencing their distributions. Using logistic regression, we assessed how habitat variables, prey detection patterns, and presence of intraguild predators affect the occurrence of these felids across 13 protected areas within Thailand. Our analysis is based on data from 1108 camera-trap locations (47,613 trap-nights). Clouded Leopard and Leopard are associated with habitat where Red Muntjac and Eurasian Wild Pig were most likely to be present. Tiger are associated with habitat with a higher likelihood for the presence of Gaur, Eurasian Wild Pig, and Sambar. Clouded Leopard and Tiger were both weakly associated with areas with mature evergreen forest. Besides availability of prey, associations with potential competitors also appear to in! uence the distribution of these felids, although the strength of these effects requires further investigation. Occurrence rates for Clouded Leopard were no different in protected areas with Leopard versus without Leopards. Leopard had similar occurrence rates regardless of the presence of Tiger, but Leopards were less likely to be detected at the same camera-trap points with the larger felid. Our results suggest that the two most commonly photographed prey species in the study areas serve as key prey species, Eurasian Wild Pig for all three carnivores and Red Muntjac for Leopard and Clouded Leopard.

As editors, we mark the launch of Conservation Science and Practice, a journal of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB), with the following remarks framing the purpose and aspirations of the journal. Our aim is to share scholarship on and experiences of the practice of conservation. We define conservation practice as the application of conservation principles or theory across conservation issues, from planning and directly managing nature to influencing public policy and private behaviors—at scales from local communities to international governing bodies. We are striving for Conservation Science and Practice to be a forum for sharing lessons learned from research and practice to reciprocally informing and improving both arenas.

A century ago, tigers (Panthera tigris Linnaeus, 1758) were so common in parts of Southeast Asia as to be considered pests, and governments sponsored their killing. Habitat loss and fragmentation, market-driven poaching and loss of prey have since led to the disappearance of Indochinese tigers from most their former range. Despite 15 years of dedicated tiger conservation funding, national estimates of Indochinese tiger subpopulations can at best only be roughly approximated. The future for the subspecies appears grim unless very focused efforts can be applied to stabilize and recover subpopulations. On a regional scale, the 2 proposed subspecies Panthera tigris corbetti and P. tigris jacksoni are effectively managed as separate conservation units. Evaluating where to place conservation efforts should consider the vulnerability (likelihood of extinction) and irreplaceability (likelihood that an area contributes uniquely to regional conservation) of tiger subpopulations. Only 1 site in Thailand supporting200 individuals (Huai Kha Khaeng-Thung Yai) is considered low vulnerability, and is irreplaceable. Five sites in Lao, Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia are medium vulnerability and irreplaceable. Priorities at these 6 sites are to double tiger numbers within 10 years through protection and monitoring. Seven sites in Lao, Thailand and Myanmar are high vulnerability and irreplaceable, and might be recovered if government commitment to tigers, staff capacity and legal frameworks for tiger protection are established. Tigers are extremely vulnerable or even extinct in Cambodia's Eastern Plains and the site is irreplaceable for tigers because it represents the only large (10,000 km(2) ) block of dry forest habitat available in the region. A reintroduction program is the only option to recover tigers there.

Melanistic leopards Panthera pardus are common in south-east Asian forests but the exact frequency of this variant phenotype is difficult to assess. Records from camera-trapping studies conducted at 22 locations in Peninsular Malaysia and southern Thailand between 1996 and 2009 show that only melanistic leopards were present in samples south of the Isthmus of Kra. During 42 565 trap-nights, we collected 445 photos of melanistic leopards and 29 photos of the spotted or non-melanistic morph. All 29 photos of spotted leopards came from study sites north of the Isthmus. These results indicate that this recessive trait may be nearly fixed in P. pardus populations of the Malay Peninsula, suggesting a unique evolutionary history of leopards in the region. Assuming a very small effective population size (Ne=100) and a high initial allelic frequency, at least 1000 years would be expected to elapse until a neutral allele became fixed. The severe bottleneck implied by this scenario provides a testable hypothesis that can be addressed using molecular markers and evidence of past glacioeustatic changes across the region. Although natural selection might lead to rapid fixation of melanism within Malayan leopards, had their effective population size been much larger (e.g. Ne=5000) and stable, with a lower allelic frequency, the fixation would require a longer time span (e.g. 20 000 years) if induced by genetic drift alone.

As part of a national strategy for recovering tiger populations, the Myanmar Government recently proposed its first and the world’s largest tiger reserve in the Hukaung Valley, Kachin State. During November 2002–June 2004, camera-traps were used to record tigers, identify individuals, and, using capture–recapture approaches, estimate density in the reserve. Despite extensive (203 trap locations, 275–558 km2 sample plots) and intensive (>4,500 trap nights, 9 months of sampling) survey efforts, only 12 independent detections of six individual tigers were made across three study sites. Due to the sparse data, estimates of tiger abundance generated by Program CAPTURE could not be made for all survey sites. Other approaches to estimating density, based on numbers of tigers caught, or derived from borrowed estimates of detection probability, offer an alternative to capture–recapture analysis. Tiger densities fall in the range of 0.2–2.2 tigers/100 km2, with 7–71 tigers inside a 3,250 km2 area of prime tiger habitat, where efforts to protect tigers are currently focused. Tiger numbers might be stabilized if strict measures are taken to protect tigers and their prey from seasonal hunting and to suppress illegal trade in wildlife. Efforts to monitor abundance trends in the tiger population will be expensive given the difficulty with which tiger data can be obtained and the lack of available surrogate indices of tiger density. Monitoring occupancy patterns, the subject of a separate ongoing study, may be more efficient.

Southeast Asia is a biodiversity hotspot where the risk of extinction for many vertebrates is high (Duckworth et al. 2012) due to the loss and degradation of habitats resulting from burgeoning human populations and economies, expansion of agricultural development, and unsustainable harvest of wildlife and other natural resources (Sodhi et al. 2010). Important conservation challenges in the region, especially in the terrestrial and coastal realms, include reducing the loss and degradation of native vegetation and reducing the risk of species' extinction and extirpation. This will involve mitigating impacts of land-use change, reducing human-wildlife conflicts, improving management of protected areas, resolving land-tenure conflicts, increasing community engagement in in resource conservation, and ultimately developing proconservation behaviors in Asian societies as a whole. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Changes in the distribution and abundance of bird and small mammal species at urban-wildland edges can be caused by different factors. Edges can affect populations directly if animals respond behaviorally to the edge itself or if proximity to edge directly affects demographic vital rates (an “ecotonal” effect). Alternatively, urban edges can indirectly affect populations if edges alter the characteristics of the adjacent wildland vegetation, which in turn prompts a response to the altered habitat (a “matrix” or “habitat” effect). We studied edge effects of birds and small mammals in southern Californian coastal sage scrub, and assessed whether edge effects were attributable to direct behavioral responses to edges or to animal responses to changes in habitat at edges. Vegetation species composition and structure varied with distance from edge, but the differences varied among study sites. Because vegetation characteristics were correlated with distance from edge, responses to habitat were explored by using independently-derived models of habitat associations to calibrate vegetation measurements to the habitat affinities of each animal species. Of sixteen species examined, five bird and one small mammal species responded to edge independently of habitat features, and thus habitat restoration at edges is expected to be an ineffective conservation measure for these species. Two additional species of birds and one small mammal responded to habitat gradients that coincided with distance from edge, such that the effect of edge on these species was expressed via potentially reversible habitat degradation.