Over the last decades, massive efforts have been made to both assess and increase the amount of land dedicated to biodiversity conservation. Less is known, however, about the diversity of management strategies implemented across the network of protected areas. In this study, we used a large database of more than 175,000 global terrestrial protected areas and the distributional data of non-marine mammals, amphibians and birds to assess both the relative proportion of land covered by different IUCN management categories across regions and their potential contribution to protecting biodiversity. We show that, although at least 41% of the terrestrial protected land is managed via a strict control of human activities to conserve wild areas, 13% is dedicated to particular species or habitats often requiring active management and 25% preserves both natural and cultural values and promotes the sustainable use of resources. Our analysis further suggests that protected areas associated with a more "human friendly" management are potentially as important as strictly-protected areas for the preservation of mammals, amphibians and birds. We argue that integrating the diversity of management strategies into conservation planning is a crucial step towards the successful preservation of the earth's biosphere.