Over 1,000 mammal species are red-listed by IUCN, as Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable. Conservation of many threatened mammal species, even inside protected areas, depends on costly active day-to-day defence against poaching, bushmeat hunting, invasive species and habitat encroachment. Many parks agencies worldwide now rely heavily on tourism for routine operational funding: >50% in some cases. This puts rare mammals at a new risk, from downturns in tourism driven by external socioeconomic factors. Using the survival of individual animals as a metric or currency of successful conservation, we calculate here what proportions of remaining populations of IUCN-redlisted mammal species are currently supported by funds from tourism. This proportion is ≥5% for over half of the species where relevant data exist, ≥15% for one fifth, and up to 66% in a few cases. Many of these species, especially the most endangered, survive only in one single remaining subpopulation. These proportions are not correlated either with global population sizes or recognition as wildlife tourism icons. Most of the more heavily tourism-dependent species, however, are medium sized (>7.5 kg) or larger. Historically, biological concern over the growth of tourism in protected areas has centered on direct disturbance to wildlife. These results show that conservation of threatened mammal species has become reliant on revenue from tourism to a previously unsuspected degree. On the one hand, this provides new opportunities for conservation funding; but on the other, dependence on such an uncertain source of funding is a new, large and growing threat to red-listed species.

Ecotourism has been advocated and adopted widely to provide financial, political and local community support for conservation. We analyse its application for conservation of African big cats, through systematic analysis of 66 published studies over three decades, and on-site audit of 48 current conservation tourism enterprises. Conservation measures include: expanding and restoring habitat and reducing net habitat loss; anti-poaching patrols and programs; measures to combat illegal wildlife trade; improved livestock husbandry such as better fences and guard dogs; welldesigned livestock compensation and predator conservation incentive programs; and live-capture, veterinary services, captive breeding, and translocation and reintroduction programmes. Some tourism enterprises do contribute to conservation of African big cats, but others have negligible or negative net outcomes. Conservation outcomes depend critically on the detailed design of conservation programmes, community involvement, and tourism marketing.

Conservation finance in many African nations relies heavily on tourism. Some commercial tourism companies run conservation projects, funding: private, communal and public reserves; anti-poaching, breeding, and translocation programs; and local employment to gain political support. All this relies on successful marketing, to attract tourists. We therefore analyse how these enterprises market their conservation projects. We find that they market: wildlife viewing opportunities first; luxury and exclusiveness second; and conservation projects third. They focus on flagship species such as the African big cats, which are key to marketing conservation. They market directly to tourists, and to specialist rather than generalist travel agents. In their view, conservation projects influence purchases significantly for some clients, but not for the majority, nor for travel agents. Conservation and marketing 33 managers hold different views, and could communicate better. These concerns are 34 increasingly important for future conservation in Africa and elsewhere.

We report an ethnographic study of specialist travel agents in luxury wildlife tourism. Agents consider 30 factors in 5 groups, related to client, destination, attraction, operator and agent. They consider the groups in sequence rapidly and intuitively. They are driven by a powerful regard for the high expectations of wealthy clients, and a sense of responsibility to the clients, but they assume authority over the decision. They rely on personal experience with each particular place and tourism product, and sell only what they know. One of their skills is to project themselves into the client's perspective so as to imagine a trip in great detail. This process contrasts strongly with the explicit deterministic approach used by retail travel agents in high-volume lower-priced subsectors, where earnings are driven by commission and incentive structures. For high-end agents, establishing long term relationships of mutual trust with individual clients and tour operators is paramount.

Read the Feature Paper: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acv.12144/abstract; other Commentaries on this paper: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acv.12203/abstract and the Response from the authors: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acv.12205/abstract