The theme of this symposium is how globalization (both biotic and cultural) is presenting conservation with new challenges and new opportunities. The purpose of this symposium is to emphasize some of the conservation implications of globalization and to highlight perspectives and management practices that may best enable us to achieve our conservation goals. This symposium has been developed to target a broad audience, including fellow ecologists, land managers, conservation organizations, policy makers, and the general public. Key challenges facing 21st century conservation efforts include climate change, global mixing of species, increasing human populations (especially in urban areas), threatened ecosystem services, and different opinions among different stakeholders as to what should be conservation objectives. Some opportunities include the prospect of better integrating conservation projects with human populations, utilizing a mixture of native and non-native species to provide ecosystem services, and adopting new perspectives as to what conservation means in a globalizing world. The symposium will open with a historical perspective of conservation efforts over the past several hundred years. This talk will be followed by a presentation describing what ecological theory has to say about conservation in a globalizing world. Following this presentation will be a talk describing the important role that urban areas can play in conservation. The first half of the symposium will end with a review of the conservation challenges and opportunities facing Africa. Following the coffee break will be two talks describing new approaches to managing species and environments. The first will emphasize the value of trying to work with ecological novelty and the second will describe the merits of new approaches to land management. The presentations will be concluded by two talks focusing on the role of non-native species in conservation efforts. The first will focus on the role that non-native species can play, and may need to play, in providing valuable ecosystem services. The final talk will emphasize how conserving certain keystone nonnative species may be necessary to preserve native biodiversity.