Protected area governance has witnessed a shift from a strict-nature conservation model towards a seemingly more participatory approach in Nepal. Despite some progress, top-down and non-deliberative processes characterise policy making in protected area. However, many civil society actors have increasingly challenged the government to provide space for local people in decision making so that their rights to natural resources are considered.

How often do people visit the world’s protected areas (PAs)? Despite PAs covering one-eighth of the land and being a major focus of nature-based recreation and tourism, we don’t know. To address this, we compiled a globally-representative database of visits to PAs and built region-specific models predicting visit rates from PA size, local population size, remoteness, natural attractiveness, and national income.

The current global gold rush, driven by increasing consumption in developing countries and uncertainty in financial markets, is an increasing threat for tropical ecosystems. Gold mining causes significant alteration to the environment, yet mining is often overlooked in deforestation analyses because it occupies relatively small areas. As a result, we lack a comprehensive assessment of the spatial extent of gold mining impacts on tropical forests. In this study, we provide a regional assessment of gold mining deforestation in the tropical moist forest biome of South America.

Black-necked Crane (Grus nigricollis) is classified as Vulnerable under the IUCN Red List Categories and legally protected in Bhutan. Bhutan is an important and the largest winter non-breeding habitat outside of the Chinese boundary. Blacknecked Cranes winter in Bhutan for about five months, and they come to central (Phobjilka, Khotokha and Gyetsa) and eastern (Bumdeling) Bhutan. In Bhutan most wintering areas lie within the Conservation or protected areas, and Bumdeling and Khotokha are declared as RAMSAR site.