Indicators for assessing the sustainability of Australia's marine ecosystems

Principles of integrated ecosystem-based management have been used to deriv e 61 potential environmental indicators for reporting on Australia's marine and estuarine ecosystems. They are focused on tracking the condition of ma rine ecosystems in the face of a variety of uses and pressures, and are con sistent with approaches used for assessment of public- and private-sector e nvironmental activities, and with the international standard. The indicator s cover issues in protected species, common habitats, renewable and non-ren ewable resources, water and sediment quality, and integrated management. Ga ps in knowledge and technical capacity include: knowledge of the nature of the ecosystems is incomplete (ineffective indicators may be selected); scie ntific understanding of environmental issues is limited (the wrong cause ma y be identified); the resolving capacity of a monitoring programme cannot b e determined (monitoring may falsely infer that no changes have occurred, o r provide an answer to the wrong question); procedures for synthesis and ag gregation of data across spatial, temporal and taxonomic scales, or for est imating uncertainty in national summaries are lacking; case-study trials, r eference sites, and suitable interpretative models are needed; and an estab lished procedure for revising and updating the indicators as new knowledge accrues, or if new issues arise, is lacking.