soften the clash between Earth's ability to sustain life and the character of its human occupancy. This means developing methods for biological conservation management alongside softer technological organisations for production (natural economy) and 'green' legislative actions for the organisation of people for production (political economy). The global educational topic-framework, which links conservation management with exploitative management, has been defined as 'cultural ecology'. It is within this area of knowledge that conservation management systems can be seen to require more than the scientific input of conservation biology. The essential feature of conservation management programmes is that they are part of the linkages between environmental, social and economic progress; between peace and security; between productivity of environment and community; and between sustainability and the renewal and extension of democracy. This is a roundabout way of saying that conservation management is about working on behalf of the wild to restore a culture, where people live and think as if they were totally engaged with their place on the planet for the long future. Fundamental scientific questions It is commonplace to hear conservation managers stress that they are really naturalists who do their best to apply good science to ecosystems that are unique in each case history. No two nature sites share the same history and factors limiting their biodiversity. They will differ with respect to time lags and non-linear responses to a given intervention. From this point of view conservation systems have much in common with the management systems of farmers and gardeners with regards uncertainties of the effects of inputs. Because of the internal complexity of ecosystems, science has yet to answer fundamental questions that were posed by Darwin regarding the factors that control relative abundance of species, with respect to space, time, pattern, food chains and population dynamics. Every nature reserve is likely to have some or all of the following questions unanswered. They are fundamental questions in ecological science that underpin all conservation management systems. How do organisms change with space? What constitutes and adequate size and shape of a reserve? How do organisms change with time? To what extent is the site a successional process? How do organisms exist in patterns? How many states or 'ways to be' are there for a particular compositional state of a habitat? How do organisms exist in food chains? What is the importance of keystone resources in maintaining community structure? How do organisms