With the growth of the global human population, the demand for food, wood and fuel will increase, so more areas of the world will turn to intensive agriculture and timber cropping systems like plantation forestry (Cubbage et al. 2010). Plantation forestry is a serious risk to global biodiversity, as the plantations themselves are often non-native and contribute little to biodiversity (Samways and Moore 1991; Pryke and Samways 2009; Bremer and Farley 2010). Biodiversity can be directly impacted by the plantations themselves, especially as large amounts of natural habitat are often transformed into plantations. Even so there are often natural areas left between plantation blocks in planted areas. These are left aside as areas of high conservation value such as protected grasslands, wetlands or indigenous forests, or for management requirements such as firebreaks, power lines and vehicle tracks (Samways et al. 2010). While not directly affected by the plantations these natural areas are often indirectly impacted through landscape fragmentation. This fragmentation isolates populations and leads to ecological relaxation, which is the loss of species from these fragments due to stochastic events or loss of ecological interactions leading to further losses of overall biodiversity. Abiotic disturbances caused by timber plantations such as water loss and soil nutrient depletion also complicate the conservation of biodiversity in and around plantations. Ecological networks (ENs) are a way to mitigate many of the adverse effects of plantation forestry on the local biodiversity (Samways et al. 2010). ENs work by connecting as many of the fragments together, although they need to be designed properly and be well managed to optimise their conservation value.