A mammoth tome indeed, this compendium originated as an internationalized version of the Australian text on Protected Area Management by Worboys, Lockwood and deLacy (2005); but it contains so much more material that it can only be considered as an entirely separate text. Some statistics show its size: 26 chapters, six appendices, 18 color plates, 57 figures, 70 tables, 25 text boxes, 178 case studies, 69 contributors and 21 reviewers, and a list of around 200 acronyms. As the editors say in their introduction, this is “a compendium of material that has not been hitherto available at a global scale in a single volume” (p.xxvi).