I picked up this book keen to learn more about habitats, landscapes and their role in wildlife conservation. With contributions from nearly 50 authors, it offers a landscape perspective in the management of wildlife and habitats, with a detailed synopsis of essential principles and applications. The content is structured into four major themes: (1) understanding habitats on a landscape level, (2) providing a foundation of landscape knowledge for wildlife managers, (3) establishing the basics of wildlife management for landscape ecologists, and (4) translating knowledge of landscape ecology into management actions.

In Part I, Understanding Habitats on Landscapes, the book elaborates on the landscape perspective in wildlife and habitat management, the roots of landscape ecology, and wildlife–landscape relationships as a foundation for managing habitats on landscapes. The authors emphasize the need for collaborative approaches for effective wildlife and habitat management. In particular, collaboration is required between landscape ecologists, who design research projects, assess quantitative data and publish their findings, and natural resource managers, who interpret scientific research and apply it to manage habitats and natural resources on the ground. Although undoubtedly such collaboration between subject experts and mangers is vital for effective conservation, I believe sociologists and communication experts need to be added in the collaboration equation. Sociologists can mobilize communities who are key in effective wildlife and habitat management, and communication experts help with the important task of simplifying the scientific jargon and clarifying messages for local communities, to ensure a shared understanding and successful community engagement.

Part II, Establishing a Landscape Foundation for Wildlife Managers, details the essential concepts in landscape ecology for wildlife and natural resource managers, highlights the use of landscape ecology to inform effective management, and describes approaches for translating land-cover datasets into habitat features. It also provides insights into the influence of habitat loss and fragmentation on wildlife populations and the importance of data collection and quantitative considerations for studying pattern–process relationships in landscapes. This part of the book essentially lays the foundation for successful integration of landscape ecology and wildlife management by introducing important terminologies and presenting them in context.

Part III, Establishing a Wildlife Management Foundation for Landscape Ecologists, delves into managing wildlife at landscape scales and provides suggestions for improving communication between landscape ecologists and managers. The authors describe challenges and opportunities in developing useful spatially explicit habitat models and support tools that can aid decision-making in the management of wildlife and landscapes. This part also highlights the importance of conservation incentive programmes to facilitate conservation on privately owned land, noting the need for conservation to be economically competitive to other land uses if it is to succeed on land that is in private hands.

Lastly, Part IV, Translating Landscape Ecology to Management, covers aspects such as the composition of ecological communities of species as key to habitat management at all scales, and argues for a joint venture approach for agencies, organizations, corporations, communities and individuals to implement local or national conservation plans for given species. It also shines a light on how to translate landscape ecology to management and take a cooperative approach to landscape conservation. Mapping of priority areas for species conservation is included here, as is the role of NGOs and their approach to landscape conservation. These topics are handled in adequate depth and breadth.

Overall, the book provides a great level of detail, with concepts and strategies of wildlife management adequately covered. It also provides an outline of the factors that influence species occurrence and thus affect landscape and habitat management. The photographs, illustrations, maps and figures are of good quality and help convey its message.

In conclusion, Wildlife Management and Landscapes has helped me broaden my understanding of the subject matter, particularly on the value of ecological models as tools to support decision-making and conservation planning. I would recommend this book as a valuable resource in higher education and as a worthwhile addition to the toolkit of natural resource management practitioners.