Discoveries of new species and new records of species are the order of the day in Vietnam, a country with a high level of biodiversity and many areas still largely unexplored. In recent years many conifers have been discovered for the first time in the country, and this paper focuses on three of these. The Vulnerable Pinus krempfii is an endemic of exceptional scientific interest. The globally Vulnerable Taiwania cryptomerioides, a conifer of ancient lineage in the Cupressaceae previously only known to occur with certainty in Taiwan and the border region between Myanmar and China, is a new discovery for Vietnam, where it is Critically Endangered. The Critically Endangered Xanthocyparis vietnamensis, a new genus and species in the Cupressaceae, was described in 2001 and is restricted to limestone outcrops on the border with China. All three species are of high conservation concern due to their rarity and because of threats to their survival from expanding cultivation, felling and fires. We discuss the suitability of these three conifers as flagship species to promote forest conservation in Vietnam. We also discuss the problems involved in the protection of these species, and the efforts that are currently being undertaken to conserve them.

We develop and apply a four-dimensional priority-setting process for the conservation of threatened birds in Venezuela. The axes that we consider are extinction risk, degree of endemicity, taxonomic uniqueness and public appeal. Alhough the first three are relatively objective measures of biological attributes, the last one is a subjective judgement of the likelihood that conservation actions in favour of a species may succeed. By grouping higher priority species according to their geographical distribution within Venezuela, we generate a list of the top priorities to save the country's threatened birds, both species- and bioregion-based. The highest priority species are northern-helmeted curassow Pauxi pauxi, Andean condor Vultur gryphus, red siskin Carduelis cucullata and plain-flanked rail Rallus wetmorei, followed by eight high priority birds, wattled guan Aburria aburri, yellow-shouldered parrot Amazona barbadensis, scissor-tailed hummingbird Hylonympha macrocerca, rusty-faced parrot Hapalopsittaca amazonina, northern screamer Chauna chavaria, torrent duck Merganetta armata, rusty-flanked crake Laterallus levraudi, and military macaw Ara militaris. Northern Venezuela stands out as a significantly higher conservation priority than the south. The Andean Cordillera, Central Coastal Cordillera, Paria Peninsula-Turimiquire Massif Complex, and Sierra de Perijá are the highest priority bioregions, followed by Lara-Falcón Arid Lands and Maracaibo Lake Basin. A final set of combined priorities was determined by integrating all top ranking species and bioregions. Our approach is relatively simple and readily applicable to other taxa and regions.

The establishment of protected areas for wildlife conservation in Africa was motivated by a number of different reasons (including hunting, recreation and wildlife conservation). The current reserve network provides good coverage of the distributions of the 194 species of larger mammals (>3 kg) and 51 species of threatened larger mammals. However, it is less effective in covering the distribution of all 197 of Africa's threatened mammal species, which includes >140 smaller bodied species (<3 kg) often restricted to habitat patches. A fully comprehensive network of areas for the conservation of African mammals, especially those facing extinction, is not yet in place, and further reserves may be needed in the Horn of Africa (Somalia in particular), the Cameroon Highlands, parts of the eastern African coastal forests and Eastern Arc Mountains, and parts of the Albertine Rift Mountains. More and larger reserve areas are also required to adequately cover all the species of South Africa. Parts of these gaps are already covered by government forest reserves, and the importance of this reserve category for the conservation of African mammals, especially threatened species, needs to be better recognized. As many of the gaps in reserve coverage are in areas of high human population and good agricultural potential, conservation goals may be difficult to achieve unless we supplement traditional reserves with novel approaches to maintain natural habitats and wildlife outside reserves.

East African blackwood is the common name for Dalbergia melanoxylon, the most valuable timber growing in the miombo woodlands of southern Tanzania, and a potential flagship species to justify conservation of this habitat. The population density, structure and exploitation of this economically and socially important species were studied in an area of southern Tanzania. Harvestable timber was found at a density of 1.03 m3 ha−1. Multi-stemmed trees, which have a lower marketable value, were more frequent in burned areas. Local people have a number of uses for the species but have replacements for all but its medicinal application. Felling licence and export figures are inconsistent but suggest that illegal harvesting is occurring. The implications of these results for the species' flagship status and options for community-based management are discussed.

Has biodiversity ‘all but disappeared from the global dialogue on sustainable development’ as Sanderson & Redford (2003) fear? Here we explore the poverty reduction imperative that dominates the current agendas of most international development agencies, question the absence of biodiversity conservation from this agenda, and debate the role of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals in building bridges between the two.

Depending on the mosaic of habitats that is created, forest fragmentation can reduce the abundance and diversity of forest birds. Temperate deciduous forests in South America are rapidly being replaced by pine plantations, causing changes in habitats for both breeding and migrant birds. We examined differences in avian species richness and abundance in three areas: a reserve with continuous tracts of native forest, forest fragments and pine plantations. Four species were negatively affected by fragmentation, with their abundance declining from continuous forest to pine plantations. Fourteen species were not affected by fragmentation and eight had significantly increased abundance in pine plantations compared to continuous forest. Overall abundance in pooled and ground/understorey birds was higher in forest fragments and pine plantations compared to continuous forest. The abundance of granivorous species was higher in the pine plantations than in the forest reserve, but the abundance of insectivorous species was higher in the forest reserve and in forest fragments than in pine plantations. Thus, forest fragmentation affects birds differentially according to their feeding ecology.

The number of free ranging African lions Panthera leo has never been comprehensively assessed. We present an inventory of available information, covering most protected areas and ranging in quality from educated guesses to individually known populations. This gives a conservative estimate of 16,500–30,000 free ranging lions in Africa. The inventory shows that populations are small and fragmented in West and Central Africa, whereas the species still occurs widely in East and Southern Africa. The results concur with the current IUCN Red List categorization of the lion as Vulnerable.