Forest management for conservation is in practice. different from management of forest for optimizing economic returns. It refers to the preservation of forest for the explicit functions of conserving the constituent biodiversity elements and ecosystem processes. The concept of managing forest for conservation is very old and was practiced by many traditional cultures and societies across the world. The resurgence however of the concept in the nineteenth century followed the European colonization events and thereafter more recently owing to the disproportionately large human pressure on the forest resources. Several models of forest management for conservation have emerged, both globally and locally. From very formal models such as the protected area network to completely informal models of grassroots people's movements, managing forests for conservation has gained an unparalleled momentum in the last couple of decades. In this article we trace the development of the concept of managing forests for conservation with a critique on the various models of management for conservation.