Nature conservation strategies have accomplished an enormous amount over the last 50 years but traditional approaches are failing to keep pace with new threats to wildlife and landscape and changes in the relationship of society and nature. This text offers a fundamental reassessment of conservation. In what is both a personal account and a broader practical vision, it argues that it is no longer a matter of parks and reserves, but conservation must now be central to our relationship with nature, and embrace the whole countryside. New thinking about biodiversity and sustainability offer opportunities to forge new and effective links between our lives and the natural world, and the book explores their ecological, economic and cultural significance. Conservation has the potential to create a new space for nature, in the landscape, and in our lives and imaginations.