Historically, the design of forest reserves and forest reserve systems (including national parks, wilderness areas, ecological areas, etc.) has been largely determined by non-scientific considerations such as economic or social factors, with most reserves being located in areas that contained low economic values, such as mountainous regions with little timber or potential for agricultural development. However, in the last 30 years there has been a strong scientific interest in reserve design arising from both a growing concern about biodiversity conservation in general (Myers 1988) and from the development of island biogeography theory (MacArthur and Wilson 1965, 1967). Island biogeography theory has been applied to mainland habitat ‘islands’ such as forest remnants and used to develop guidelines for reserve design (e.g., Diamond 1975). Since MacArthur and Wilson's work, several aspects of island biogeography theory and its subsequent application have been questioned, while other issues equally relevant to reserve design have been highlighted (e.g., representativeness, metapopulation dynamics, and the importance of considering natural disturbance regimes) which have contributed towards our current understanding of reserve design.

In this chapter I initially discuss why we need forest reserves. I then highlight some of the inadequacies in past approaches to reserve design before focusing on the importance of representativeness in reserve systems, as well as some other considerations in designing reserves and reserve systems. I then review some numerical approaches that have been proposed for developing optimal reserve systems, and finally briefly discuss reserve implementation and management.