Between April and August 1994, three steps were taken to assess the status of Baird's tapir Tapirus bairdii in north-eastern Honduras: (i) forest cover was mapped to estimate the amount of habitat available; (ii) interviews with local people were conducted to determine where the species occurs; and (iii) searches were made for tapir signs in several mountain ranges to corroborate interview information. Local reports and searches indicated that the species occurred in forests throughout the area. Using density estimates of 0.05–0.24 tapirs per sq km, there may be 520–2760 tapirs in the 10,400–11,500 sq km of contiguous rain forest that remains in north-eastern Honduras—a population large enough to have a good chance of long-term persistence. The main threat to the population is human colonization, which is destroying the forest along the rivers and major streams. This is fragmenting the tapii population into isolated units, which will be increasingly subject to the stochastic events that drive small populations to extinction. Hunting, which along with habitat destruction, is a major contributor to the rapid decline of tapir populations in areas of human colonization, does not appear to pose an immediate threat in the study area. However, population trend data are lacking and the impact of hunting on tapirs remains unassessed.

In 1996, the first major biological surveys in the Itombwe Massif in over 30 years revealed that significant areas of natural habitat and remnant faunal populations remain, but that these are subject to ongoing degradation and over-exploitation. At least 10 areas of gorilla Gorilla gorilla graueri occurrence, including eight of 17 areas identified during the first survey of the species in the massif in 1959, were found. Seventy-nine gorilla nest sites were recorded and at least 860 gorillas were estimated to occupy the massif. Fifty-six species of mammals were recorded. Itombwe supports the highest representation, of any area, of bird species endemic to the Albertine Rift highlands. Twenty-two of these species were recorded during the surveys, including the Congo bay owl Phodilus prigoginei, which was previously known from a single specimen collected in Itombwe nearly 50 years ago. No part of Itombwe is officially protected and conservation initiatives are needed urgently. Given the remoteness and continuing political instability of the region, conservation initiatives must collaborate with traditional authorities based in the massif, and should focus at the outset on protecting the gorillas and limiting further degradation of key areas.

A survey of diurnal primate populations was carried out in Odzala National Park, Republic of the Congo, over 3 months in 1994 and 2 months in 1995. The park contains a high diversity and species-specific abundance of primates, and has the highest number of diurnal primates (10 species) in the forest block of Central Africa. Eight species of monkey: greater whitenosed monkey Cercopithecus nictitans, moustached monkey Cercopithecus cephus, crowned guenon Cercopithecus pogonias, De Brazza's monkey Cercopithecus neglectus, talapoin Miopithecus talapoin, white-cheeked mangabey Cercocebus albigena, agile mangabey Cercocebus galeritus and guereza Colobus guereza, as well as gorilla Gorilla g. gorilla and chimpanzee Pan t. troglodytes were sighted in the survey. Monkey species richness was highest in dense inundated forest and thicket, with all eight species occurring in these habitats, whereas only four species were found in terra firma forest (consisting of the park's two main habitats, open-canopy Marantaceae forest and closed-canopy primary forest). Three of the four species (C. nictitans, C. cephus and C. albigena) present in terra firma forest were most abundant in closed-canopy primary forest (1.4,1.0 and 0.6 groups per km, respectively) while the fourth (C. pogonias) was most abundant in open-canopy Marantaceae forest. Gorilla nests were most abundant in open-canopy Marantaceae forest (12.1 nests per km), while chimpanzee nests were mostly found in closed-canopy primary forest and Marantaceae forest (14 and 12 nests per km, respectively). Odzala has the highest recorded densities of western lowland gorilla (mean = 5.4 individuals per sq km) and chimpanzee (mean = 2.2 individuals per sq km) in Central Africa. The high densities of gorillas and chimpanzees may be a result of the high productivity of the forest and low poaching pressure. Conservation measures to ensure the maintenance of conditions in the area, such as educational programmes, are suggested.

In the debt-ridden, high-population-growth, resource-mining states of the Congo Basin, conservation of biodiversity is seldom the primary concern of national policy makers or of local resource users. Moreover, the recurring costs of managing protected areas and the opportunity costs of forgoing logging and farming to maintain protected areas are a substantial net drain on national and local economies. Consequently, it is becoming increasingly important that protected areas generate, from user fees or donor contributions, sufficient funds to offset the costs of maintaining them. Government and donor investment currently meet less than 30 per cent of the estimated recurring costs required to manage the protected-area network within central African countries effectively, and cover none of the growing opportunity costs. Nature tourism, the fastest growing sector of the $US3 trillion (3 million million) a year global tourism industry, may offer a source of revenue to help fill this gap in funds. Congo Basin national parks and reserves harbour many charismatic animals (okapi, lowland gorilla, mandrills, bongo, forest elephant) that are likely to attract tourists, and as a result many protected- area managers are sinking capital into the development of tourist infrastructure. This paper reviews the evidence for ecotourism's capacity to generate revenue for protected-area management and appraises the financial viability of nature tourism in the Congo Basin.

In sub-Saharan Africa conservation of biodiversity is increasingly predicated on finding ways to ensure that the economic value of maintaining a landscape in its ‘natural’ state meets or exceeds the expected returns from converting the area to an alternative land use, such as agriculture. ‘Wildlands’ in Africa must generate, directly or from donor contributions, funds sufficient to cover both the operating costs of conservation, and the opportunity costs of forgoing other forms of resource use. Government and donor investments currently meet less than 30 per cent of the estimated recurring costs required to manage the protected-area network within central African countries effectively, and cover none of the growing opportunity costs incurred to maintain protected areas. Unfortunately, few additional sources of funding are available.

The endemic bearded sakis Chiropotes satanas Satanas and Chiropotes satanas utahicki of south-eastern Amazonia are among the most threatened of this region's primates because of a combination of deforestation and hunting, and their apparent intolerance of habitat disturbance. Recent surveys at eight sites confirm that sakis are locally extinct in some areas where intense habitat fragmentation is exacerbated by hunting pressure, but also show that, in the absence of hunting, they can be relatively abundant in isolated forest fragments. Density was unexpectedly low in one protected area, however, which implies that caution is necessary for the planning of long-term conservation strategies. Well-protected forest fragments of reasonable size ( > 5000 ha) appear to have good potential for the protection of bearded saki populations. While many of the region's major landowners may thus make a significant contribution to the management of saki populations, land conflicts are a potentially serious problem for the long-term conservation of not just these primates, but the region's fauna and flora as a whole.