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Animal Conservation celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2018, a fantastic achievement. One of the great things about anniversaries, apart from the obvious opportunity for celebrations, is that it gives us a chance to reflect on the past. Twenty years is a long time in the history of any journal; when Animal Conservation was launched there were 14 journals with ‘conservation’in their title, now there are 43, and it is pleasing that Animal Conservation is ranked within the top four. Conservation, in general, has a greater place in society’s consciousness than it did 20 years ago. The issues raised through ecological and conservation research highlight the challenges that biodiversity is facing due to land-use change, invasive species, over-utilisation and climate change. Research has also shown what can be done to conserve animal species in both zoos and the wild. Many of the articles published in Animal Conservation have led to real change in the ways that animal species and communities are both understood and managed.

So, how did the Journal start, what niche was it trying to fill? As prescribed by the editorial in the first edition,‘We intend the journal to address scientific issues of past, present and future factors influencing the conservation of animal species and their habitats’(Bruford et al., 1998). This intention was reflected in the first volume of the Journal–of the 34 papers published, 24 were focused on individual species. The Journal has, over the past 20 years, moved generally away from studies on the conservation of individual species to focus on the broader lessons from animal conservation that can be learnt and applied more holistically. This …