Ecological information and understanding are crucial to inform and underpin managerial decisions about conservation, management of resources, environmental impacts and restoration of damaged habitats. Examples will be used to illustrate current myths used by managers and decision-makers. These include: the wrong notion that there is a "balance of nature"; the anti-scientific idea that indicators of ecological processes or biodiversity currently exist; the counter-productive illusion that restoration projects are useful without their goals being defined and their achievments being assessed; the waste of rsources in routine, but goal-free, "monitoring". How better decisions could be made will be illustrated by examples where people seek and use relevant and valid ecological information.
