Conservation has enjoyed considerable success in the UK over the last 50 years. Landscapes, habitats and species have been protected, and the movement has received a high level of public support. Yet despite these achievements, traditional approaches to conservation are failing to keep pace with change in the countryside, in our society and in the economy. Despite every effort, habitat loss and landscape change continue, and valued features of the natural world are still being destroyed. "Future Nature" analyses the problems that conservation faces and discusses the new ideas and new energy that conservation needs for the future. Concepts such as biodiversity and sustainability, and changes in our understanding, appreciation and concern for nature offer unprecedented opportunities for the future. The links between nature and culture are tightly intertwined, as are those between economies and the countryside, and Bill Adams explores these links, and the scientific, cultural and economic significance of conservation. He argues that conservation must move beyond the boundaries of parks and reserves to embrace the whole countryside, and that it must be built into ordinary life, not isolated as a specialised product kept only in reserved places.

Conservation action must be founded on the relationship between our daily lives and the natural world: its success demands a creative approach, and a recognition of the vital wilderness of nature.The importance of conservation for the future is enormous. It holds the potential to create new spaces for nature; both in the landscape, and in our lives and imaginations. This factual, beautifully written and thought-provoking book offers a fundamentalreassessment of conservation, its importance, and how to achieve.