The chapters in this part show that protected areas in the Malay Archipelago may be severely threatened. Thus, protecting areas of global as well as regional significance is essential if we are to conserve biodiversity. Protected areas, for example, are crucial to bird species, and likely other taxa, of high-conservation concern, and should therefore remain one of the fundamental conservation strategies. Existing protected areas need to be better protected, and future protected areas should be carefully planned using both biological and sociological underpinnings. Challenges in the delineation and tangible management of protected areas can be best negated through a balance between biological and socioeconomic needs.

While current measures of protection may not be largely effective in most protected areas, understanding of effective strategies undoubtedly grows with conservation failures. Clearly, innovative new ideas and conservation tools are needed to both maintain existing protected areas and recruit new ones. Important considerations should be the expansion of current protected areas through restoration and reforestation, inclusion and education of local stakeholders about demarcation and conservation goals. Conservation attitudes of rural communities are generally positive. Negative conservation attitudes increase the intensity of resource harvesting in the protected areas. Therefore, fostering favourable support for conservation may help to alleviate at least some resource-harvesting pressures. More ecological and sociological studies are urgently needed so that tangible conservation actions and the improvement of conservation attitudes can be derived.