Target setting has become a familiar concept through the international policy debate on global climate change. In contrast with greenhouse gas emission targets, the type of targets we emphasize in this book must be developed from ecological knowledge rather than from a socio-economic analysis and a desired outcome. The focus on value-free, quantitative approaches to target setting we imposed from the start could not be applied to all chapters, however. Contributors to this book represent a wide array of professional backgrounds and, accordingly, they approached conservation target setting from a variety of perspectives. Hence, we were not surprised when some contributors argued that targets should integrate socio-economic considerations. Does this reflect insubordination on their part or, rather, the complex socio-economic ramifications of conservation issues? It would be naive to expect a large group of intellectuals to abide by a rule and, therefore, we suspect that both hypotheses may apply here! Including ourselves, most of this book's contributors work with forest managers and policy-makers on a weekly basis unless they are practitioners themselves. Thus, they are well aware of the practical limits to the development of conservation policy and its implementation. None the less, to paraphrase George Bush, we as co- editors decided to stay the course and separate ecological and socio-economic considerations in the target-setting approaches presented in the various chapters. Our stance on this issue generated interesting discussions, which provided insight for this synthesis.