Bad news -- The extinction crisis -- The pleistocene-holocene event: forty thousand years of extinction -- The first wave -- The second and third waves -- Ecological wounds of North America : direct killing and habitat loss -- Ecological wounds of North America : fragmentation, loss of ecological processes, exotic species, pollution, and climate change -- Good news -- Conservation biology -- Rewilding North America -- Selecting and designing protected areas: the early days -- Selecting and designing protected areas: the past two decades -- The importance of wilderness areas -- Taking action -- Putting the pieces together: building a North American Wildlands network -- An ecological approach to wilderness area selection and design -- Land management reforms for implementing the North American Wildlands network -- Hope for the future.