Tropical forests are an undervalued asset in meeting the greatest global challenges of our time—averting climate change and promoting development. Despite their importance, tropical forests and their ecosystems are being destroyed at a high and even increasing rate in most forest-rich countries. The good news is that the science, economics, and politics are aligned to support a major international effort over the next five years to reverse tropical deforestation. Why Forests? Why Now? synthesizes the latest evidence on the importance of tropical forests in a way that is accessible to anyone interested in climate change and development and to readers already familiar with the problem of deforestation. It makes the case to decisionmakers in rich countries that rewarding developing countries for protecting their forests is urgent, affordable, and achievable.

Executive summary: Tourism is often proposed 1) as a strategy to fund conservation efforts to protect great apes and their habitats, 2) as a way for local communities to participate in, and benefit from, conservation activities on behalf of great apes, or 3) as a business. A few very successful sites point to the considerable potential of conservation-based great ape tourism, but it will not be possible to replicate this success everywhere. The number of significant risks to great apes that can arise from tourism reqire a cautious approach. If great ape tourism is not based on sound conservation principles right from the start, the odds are that economic objectives will take precedence, the consequences of which in all likelihood would be damaging to the well-being and eventual survival of the apes, and detrimental to the continued preservation of their habitat. All great ape species and subspecies are classified as Endangered or Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN 2010), therefore it is imperative that great ape tourism adhere to the best practice guidelines in this document. The guiding principles of best practice in great ape tourism are: Tourism is not a panacea for great ape conservation or revenue generation; Tourism can enhance long-term support for the conservation of great apes and their habitat; Conservation comes first--it must be the primary goal at any great ape site and tourism can be a tool to help fund it; Great ape tourism should only be developed if the anticipated conservation benefits, as identified in impact studies, significantly outweigh the risks; Enhanced conservation investment and action at great ape tourism sites must be sustained in perpetuity; Great ape tourism management must be based on sound and objective science; Benefits and profit for communities adjacent to great ape habitat should be maximised; Profit to private sector partners and others who earn income associated with tourism is also important, but should not be the driving force for great ape tourism development or expansion; Comprehensive understanding of potential impacts must guide tourism development. positive impacts from tourism must be maximised and negative impacts must be avoided or, if inevitable, better understood and mitigated. The ultimate success or failure of great ape tourism can lie in variables that may not be obvious to policymakers who base their decisions primarily on earning revenue for struggling conservation programmes. However, a number of biological, geographical, economic and global factors can affect a site so as to render ape tourism ill-advised or unsustainable. This can be due, for example, to the failure of the tourism market for a particular site to provide revenue sufficient to cover the development and operating costs, or it can result from failure to protect the target great apes from the large number of significant negative aspects inherent in tourism. Either of these failures will have serious consequences for the great ape population. Once apes are habituated to human observers, they are at increased risk from poaching and other forms of conflict with humans. They must be protected in perpetuity even if tourism fails or ceases for any reason. Great ape tourism should not be developed without conducting critical feasibility analyses to ensure there is sufficient potential for success. Strict attention must be paid to the design of the enterprise, its implementation and continual management capacity in a manner that avoids, or at least minimises, the negative impacts of tourism on local communities and on the apes themselves. Monitoring programmes to track costs and impacts, as well as benefits, [is] essential to inform management on how to optimise tourism for conservation benefits. These guidelines have been developed for both existing and potential great ape tourism sites that wish to improve the degree to which their programme constributes to the conservation rather than the exploitation of great apes.

This conference represents the first time in my life when I felt it was a misfor tune, rather than a major cause of my happiness, that I do conservation work in New Guinea. Yes, it is true that New Guinea is a fascinating microcosm, it has fascinating birds and people, and it has large expanses of undisturbed rainforest. In the course of my work there, helping the Indonesian government and World Wildlife Fund set up a comprehensive national park system, I have been able to study animals in areas without any human population. But New Guinea has one serious drawback: it has no primates, except for humans. Thus, I come to this conference on primate conservation as an underprivileged and emotionally deprived observer, rather than as an involved participant. Nevertheless, it is easy for anyone to become interested in primate conserva tion. The public cares about primates. More specifically, to state things more realistically, many people care some of the time about some primates. Primates are rivaled only by birds, pandas, and the big cats in their public appeal. For some other groups of animals, the best we can say is that few people care about them, infrequently. For most groups of animals, no one cares about them, ever.

Experiences from incentive-based forest management are examined for their effects on the livelihoods of local communities. In the second section, country case studies provide a snapshot of REDD developments to date and identify design features for REDD that would support benefits for forest communities.

The orangutan is the most highly endangered species of great ape. Orangutans are threatened by deforestation, poaching, the illegal pet trade, and the isolation and fragmen tation of dwindling wild populations. Their conservation is impeded by certain aspects of their ecology (e. g. , a rain forest habitat) and certain features of their life history (e. g. , an eight-to twelve-year interbirth interval). Added to the U. S. Endangered Species List in 1970, the orangutan is now clearly on the road to extinction. The number of wild orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra is currently estimated to have decreased to between 12,300 and 20,571 individuals. Only 2% of original orangutan habitat is protected and some of these areas are now being destroyed. Clearly, attention to ecology, demography, censusing, rehabilitation, and conservation is essential if the orangutan is to survive in the wild beyond the next century. The protection of orangutans is a complex, multifaceted problem, involving such pressing issues as human poverty, overpopulation, and the economic development of Southeast Asia. Although the orangutan has been placed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), more orangutans were sold illegally in Taiwan between 1990 and 1993 than are housed in all the world's zoos. In the past, scientific and public attention has centered on the African apes. For this reason, the sole Asian great ape, the orangutan, has been called the "neglected ape.