Pileated gibbons are listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), an international agreement between governments whose goal is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. Pileated gibbon habitat is largely protected in Thailand due to protected areas such as Tab Lan, Pang Sida, and Ta Phraya National Parks. Community involvement and education is the main form of conservation action taking place in Thailand. A conservation initiative aimed to reduce opportunistic hunting took place in the country in 2009. Before the initiative, the gibbon population in Thailand declined by 70% between 1979 and 2008, largely due to bushmeat hunting. By 2012, the gibbon population had increased by 20%, and increased even more by 2016.

In Cambodia, where habitat loss is the major threat, the highest priority conservation action is protecting land and, importantly, strengthening the administration of protected lands. There are three important protected areas for pileated gibbons in the country: the Samkos and Aural Wildlife Sanctuaries and the Central Cardamom Protected Forest. Efforts by the Cambodian government in cooperation with Conservation International have resulted in the development of a management plan for the protected areas and the deployment of ranger units to combat illegal poaching and logging. 

The nonprofit organization Wildlife Alliance is also working with the Cambodian government to rescue live, illegally collected pileated gibbons. Five- to six-thousand animals of many species are rescued by the organization annually. Most animals are immediately released upon confiscation. If a pileated gibbon needs medical care before release, it is housed in a temporary rehabilitation program before being released under IUCN protocol. For pileated gibbons that cannot be released—such as those that have grown too used to humans and don’t have the skills needed to survive in the wild—they are incorporated into the organization’s captive breeding program. In the program, mothers raise their own offspring, who are eventually released into the wild themselves. A monitoring study of pileated gibbons that have been released into the wild found that individuals that have been raised by their mother with minimal human intervention were more likely to be successfully released. Individuals that were confiscated from the wildlife trade, often hand-reared by humans, were less likely to successfully return to the wild.