The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the success of Rio+20 through demonstrating the key role that Ecosystem Management has in underpinning the Green Economy and illustrating the advantages of this approach. In the paper we review the evolution of Ecosystem Management in the past 40 years, and project its increasing role in improving the natural foundation for a Green Economy development in the next 60 years after Rio+20 towards 2070. Taken together, the endeavour is ‘a journey of a century’. The paper focuses on what to do in the transition period of the next 20 years after Rio+20.