Between September 17th and 19th, a group of experts met in Washington D.C. to develop an agenda to combat these precipitous and unprecedented declines. The meeting was hosted by Conservation International, and held under the auspices of the World Conservation Union – IUCN, with support from the IUCN/SSC Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force and the Global Amphibian Specialist Group. At the meeting, over 60 international experts developed an action plan to address what they identified as the six major reasons behind the declines: habitat degradation and loss, climate change, chemical contamination, infectious disease, invasive species, and over-harvesting. Chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease caused by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, has devastated amphibian populations in Central and South America, and appears to be spreading in other parts of the world. This disease was the topic of much discussion during the summit, as were other factors contributing to declines even within well-managed protected areas. To date, however, habitat degradation and loss have been the main factors contributing to amphibian declines globally, impacting nearly 70% of all amphibian species. Since many amphibians have highly restricted global ranges, the loss of a few sites can lead to the extinction of entire species.

The budget for the global amphibian action plan was estimated at US$404 million over five years and included four types of actions: researching the causes of declines and extinctions, documenting amphibian diversity, developing and implementing long-term conservation efforts, and developing a task force to respond to crises. Research will be directed primarily towards understanding the impact on amphibian populations of Chytridiomycosis and other diseases, global warming, and environmental contamination. Regarding documenting amphibian diversity, the action plan calls for the identification of 1,000 species in the next five years, and of 2,500 species in the next ten years; the plan also mandates continuously updating the Global Amphibian Assessment. Conservation projects will include safeguarding key habitats, preventing disease, controls on harvesting, captive breeding, and reintroductions. A huge fundraising effort will be needed to raise the recommended amount; nevertheless, during the workshop, funding from several sources, totaling US$700,000, was confirmed and other potential sources were identified.

With roughly half of its 114 km² consisting of primary, nearly pristine forest, the Hellshire Hills represent one of the finest examples of tropical dry forest remaining in the insular Caribbean. Not surprisingly, the area serves as an important repository of endemic biodiversity. The island’s only endemic land mammal, the Hutia Geocapromys brownii, VU, is abundant in Hellshire, as are many of the country’s endemic birds. The reptile fauna consists of 16 species, 12 of which are endemic, and many of which are considered threatened, including the Jamaican Boa Epicrates subflavus, VU. Other enigmatic species present include the Critically Endangered Jamaican Cave Frog Eleutherodactylus cavernicola, previously known only from a single cave system in Portland Ridge, and the Blue-tailed Galliwasp Celestus duquesneyi, recently rediscovered in the Hellshire Hills. The forest also boasts an impressive flora containing many Jamaican endemics.

To date, the only conservation activities in Hellshire have been localized efforts carried out by members of the Jamaican Iguana Recovery Programme, based at the University of the West Indies. With funding from the International Iguana Foundation, Conservation International, the Disney Wildlife Conservation Trust, and several U.S. zoos, these efforts are continuing, and are presently under expansion. In situ conservation tactics focus on the control of invasive predators such as the mongoose, wild pigs, and feral cats and dogs. Ex situ conservation strategies have included a captive “headstart” program and the establishment of satellite breeding programs at the Hope Zoo in Kingston and at six U.S. zoos. So far, 76 headstarted iguanas have been reintroduced into Hellshire, and captive breeding was achieved for the first time in 2004, at the Hope Zoo.

Clearly, the most ominous threat to the iguana, and to all the other natural inhabitants of the Hellshire Hills, is the daily destruction of the forest by illegal tree cutters – primarily charcoal burners. Long at the forefront of management plans for the iguana, protection of the Hellshire Hills forest has yet to become a reality. Encouragingly, the area gained protected area status on Earth Day, 1999, with the Jamaican government’s declaration of the Portland Bight Protected Area (PBPA) – the country’s most recent and largest protected area -- encompassing 520 km² of land and 1356 km² of sea habitat. Unfortunately, delays over the delegation of management authority have resulted in the PBPA being little more than a paper park; this includes the Hellshire Hills portion.

The species targeted for the study included Jaguar Panthera onca, Cougar Puma concolor, and Maned Wolf Chrysocyon brachyurus, which inhabit Emas National Park, a 1,300km² protected area and its surroundings. PhD student Carly Vynne of the University of Washington and researchers from the Jaguar Conservation Fund, Brasilia University and other institutions carried out the field work. The results were presented at the XIX Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology held in July 2005 in Brasilia, Brazil.

Three teams - composed of a dog handler, a research assistant and a dog - collected data on the target species from July 2003 to January 2004. Each dog was trained to find a scat, then to sit and await its reward: in this case, a tennis ball. The study area consisted of a grid, divided into 5x5 km cells. Each cell was sampled daily by a different team. By the end of the project, a total of 610 scat samples were collected, amounting to some 35 kilograms of feces, with 90% of samples originating from the Maned Wolf.

However, the island's biodiversity is still seriously threatened, above all by commercial logging. Now, three new government decrees provide the chance to safeguard Siberut's remarkable biodiversity and culture in perpetuity. In 2004, a presidential instruction (4 Tahun 2005) was signed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to provide a legal framework to combat illegal logging and the timber trade. At the same time, Departemen Kehutanan, the Department of Forestry, passed decrees (SK.159/Menhut-II/2004 and P.18/Menhut-II/2004) on ecosystem restoration. These open the possibility for organizations to bid for 55-year commitments to restore production forests for their biodiversity and ecosystem service values. BirdLife Indonesia is in the process of developing a bid for establishing such a concession at the Asia Log Timber concession in Jambi province. This precedent may provide a similar solution for Siberut, as well as for other key biodiversity areas such as the 900 km² Batang Toru watershed (PT Teluk Nauli concession) in North Sumatra. There are other policy options for conservation in the production forests of Siberut Island, including a decree by the Minister of Forestry (07.1/Kpts-II/2000) regarding "Criteria and Standards of Environmental Services Use Permits in Production Forest". The decree states that production forests can be used for various activities focused on non-timber forest product use, such as carbon sequestration, research, ecotourism, and water services (irrigation, drinking water, and power plants).

Last seen in 1936, the Mount Diablo Buckwheat Eriogonum truncatum, was rediscovered on the flanks of Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County, California. The flower, which resembles a small pink powder puff, was thought to be extinct because its native habitat on Mount Diablo had been overrun by invasive plant species. But in May 2005, Michael Park, a botanist and graduate student at U.C. Berkeley, rediscovered a site with at least 20 of the rare buckwheat plants in a remote corner of Mt. Diablo State Park. Not long after this rediscovery, botanists stumbled upon the California Dissanthelium Dissanthelium californicum, a grass species originally discovered on Santa Catalina Island in 1847, and subsequently on San Clemente and Guadelupe, and last seen in 1912. The species was thought to have been eliminated by introduced grazing animals on all three offshore islands. Both San Clemente and Catalina had been well surveyed botanically, and yet while conducting survey work in a burn area on Catalina, plant ecologist Jenny McCune happened upon the species. It is possible that the diminished grazing pressure in recent years, combined with very high rainfall in 2005, could have caused the grass to flourish for the first time in a century. Small patches of the grass have now been found in three locations on Catalina.

Unfortunately, such rediscoveries of species are all too rare; perhaps even more unusual is the discovery of new species that represent an entire new family previously unknown to science. In one such instance, scientists recently discovered a new family of freshwater fishes from the Río Usumacinta basin of Chiapas, México, in the Mesoamerica Hotspot. The species, a primitive catfish, was named Lacantunia enigmatica, and represents the only species in the new family Lacantuniidae. In ichthyology, there have only been two new families discovered in the past 60 years: the Coelacanth in 1938 and the Megamouth Shark in 1983.