helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges. IUCN's work focuses on valuing and conserving nature, ensuring effective and equitable governance of its use, and deploying nature-based solutions to global challenges in climate, food and development. IUCN supports scientific research, manages field projects all over the world, and brings governments, NGOs, the UN and companies together to develop policy, laws and best practice. IUCN is the world's oldest and largest global environmental organization, with more than 1,200 government and NGO members and almost 11,000 volunteer experts in some 160 countries. IUCN's work is supported by over 1,000 staff in 45 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world. www.iucn.org Selection of Candidates for Release .

Sanctuaries and rehabilitation centres must strive to demonstrate not only a welfare benefit to individuals but also a measurable contribution to the conservation of species. We will discuss how to carry out the rescue, rehabilitation and reintroduction of gibbons and the rationale behind the process, based on what is known and is being learnt about rehabilitating these species. This document is focused on guidelines for in situ rescue, rehabilitation and release, to account for the limitations in access to resources in developing countries. Some of the suggestions mentioned here may not be practical for all rehabilitation centres. This essay is not designed to be a complete guide to the rehabilitation and welfare of gibbons but should be used as a template. It is intended to be the beginnings of a living document and is formed from personal observations and, where noted, from procedures being used at the Kalaweit Gibbon Rehabilitation Project in Kalimantan, Indonesia, from the Javan Gibbon Centre in Java, Indonesia, and from an extensive search of the literature. Standardizing procedures across all in situ rehabilitation centres will help to prevent the repetition of mistakes and ensure that all centres follow similar medical and husbandry procedures for these threatened species.

Population viability analysis is a predictive procedure that uses a combination of different modelling approaches to estimate species vulnerability to extinction. Javan gibbons (Hylobates moloch) are vulnerable to local extinction primarily due to loss of habitat and hunting for the illegal pet trade. Using the modelling software VORTEX, we assessed the status of Javan gibbons in 3 areas (Ujung Kulon National Park, Halimun-Salak National Park, and Dieng Mountains) which hold over half of the remaining estimated number of gibbons on Java. Ujung Kulon and Halimun-Salak are long-time protected areas, whereas Dieng Mountains remain unprotected. For each area, we calculated the probability of extinction over a 100-year time period by testing different area-specific scenarios (e.g., hunting, deforestation, and increase in carrying capacity). Our modelling suggests each of the populations has a high chance of becoming extinct within the next 100 years if hunting and deforestation persist. If these threats are eliminated, the model shows each of the populations are large enough to persist in the long term whilst maintaining high levels of current genetic diversity. We conclude that specific actions should be implemented to develop more inclusive conservation management practices, especially improving awareness regarding the illegal wildlife trade and increased protection of wild populations and their habitats.

IntroductionThere have been steady reductions in mortality rates in the majority of high-income countries, including Scotland, since 1945. However, reductions in mortality rates have slowed down since 2012–2014 in these nations; and have reversed in some cases. Deaths among those aged 55+ explain a large amount of these changing mortality trends in Scotland. Increased pressures on health and social care services have been suggested as one factor explaining these changes. This paper outlines a protocol for the approach to testing the extent to which health and social care pressures can explain recent mortality trends in Scotland. Although a slower rate of mortality improvements have affected people of all ages, certain ages have been more negatively affected than the others. The current analyses will be run by age-band to test if the service pressure-mortality link varies across age-group.Methods and analysisThis will be an observational ecological study based on the Scottish population. The exposures of interest will be the absolute (primary outcome) and percentage (secondary outcome) change in real terms per capita spending on social and healthcare services between 2011 and 2017. The outcome of interest will be the absolute (primary outcome) and percentage (secondary outcome) change in age-standardised mortality rate between 2012 and 2018 for men and women separately. The units of analysis will be the 32 local authorities and the 14 territorial health boards. The analyses will be run for both all age-groups combined and for the following age bands: <1, 1–15, 16–44, 45–64, 65–74, 75–84 and 85+.A series of descriptive analyses will summarise the distribution of health and social care expenditure and mortality trends between 2011 and 2018. Linear regression analysis will be used to investigate the direct association between health care spending and mortality rates.Ethics and disseminationThe data used in this study will be publicly available and aggregated and will not be individually identifiable; therefore, ethical committee approval is not needed. This work will not result in the creation of a new data set. On completion, the study will be stored within the National Health Service research governance system. All of the results will be published once they have been shared with partner agencies.