In my view, the wildlife in the State Forests of NSW in 2004 has the best and most secure management regime of any production forests in the world. The support for this view is based on the following account. Over the past 30 years I have been directly involved with the management of forest wildlife in NSW, North America and more recently on a global basis. Beginning with a background in wildlife management acquired through undergraduate studies and volunteer work in the field, I have been lucky enough to experience the changes in reality and paradigm with regard to the values of - and actions required for - successful management of forest wildlife. My experiences include membership of the Scientific Committee of the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 in New South Wales and managing wildlife in the remaining 2 million hectares of native forest and 50 000 hectares of plantation for State Forest in NSW. Over that time I participated in the Spotted Owl Strix occidentalis issues of the 1980s and 1990s in the Pacific Northwest, the rainforest debate in Queensland and NSW in the early 1980s, and establishing early work on the distribution and abundance of vertebrates in southern NSW in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Most recently, I have participated in the writing and development of the National Forest Policy (early 1990s), the consequent Comprehensive Regional Assessments (CRAs), and the negotiations for the resultant Regional Forest Agreements (RFA). Finally, I have participated in the implementation of these RFAs in NSW, and tried to develop an economic force to deliver on global biodiversity management. In this brief and data free paper, I try to summarise those experiences in terms of the results for forest wildlife management and the delivery of biodiversity on a permanent and useful basis for future generations.