Humans have now irreversibly reshaped ecosystem processes and biodiversity across most of the terrestrial biosphere. Yet ecological scientists, educators and the public continue to understand the biosphere in terms of conventional biome systems and other representations of the biosphere that either ignore humans altogether or that simplify human influence into a few dimensions of disturbance, impact or domination. To guide sustainable management of the biosphere in the future, ecologists and educators need to rebuild ecological science and education on a framework that incorporates humans not only as destroyers of natural systems, but as the essential and permanent reshapers, conservators and managers of the biosphere at local, regional and global scales.