Sustainability Indicators: from Theory to Practice

Thursday 28th August 2008
Australian Tropical Forest Institute (ATFI)
Building E2, James Cook University, Cairns Campus

The Cairns & Far North Environment Centre (CAFNEC) is pleased to present the Far North’s first seminar on Sustainability Indicators.

Many planning policies and strategies claim that sustainability is a core objective. However, to substantiate this intent, such policies must develop means of tracking progress towards this end. Indicators provide a way of doing this by providing a measure against which progress towards a stated goal can be monitored. Through the continual monitoring and evaluation of data on key environmental indexes, the effectiveness of management for environmental issues can better inform consequent decision making.

This seminar seeks to examine how Sustainability and Environmental Indicators can evolve from being data sets collated by research agencies, to a decision making and management tool which actually informs and directs our efforts and progress in achieving ecological sustainability in land use planning. This will require a feedback loop, or a closed cycle of State- Pressure- Response, where factors such as environmental impacts, of marine, aquatic and terrestrial land use planning decisions all interact and inform enhanced learning outcomes.

In the context of new council amalgamations and Far North Queensland’s first regional statutory plan, the time is right to be widely discussing new, sophisticated responses to protecting our environment. It is within this context that we introduce the concept of Sustainability Indicators to the wider community.

This seminar will seek to engage planning and natural resource management professionals as to how indicators can be better used to effect change. It also aims to educate the community about the unrealised potential of Indicators as a sustainability tool. CAFNEC hopes that this event will bring together a broad range of sectors and interest groups, from the local and state government, academia and conservation to discuss an emerging theme in environmental management in our region.

CAFNEC is pleased to welcome our keynote speaker Jade Herriman, of the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney, who has a range of experience in sustainability research and the application of sustainability indicators within local government areas. The seminar will also address how sustainability indicators are being developed and applied at our local level, with case study presentations by guests from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Terrain NRM, and CSIRO. Our afternoon forum/workshop will then seek to address the application of sustainability indicators within the FNQ region in further detail.

The event is proudly sponsored by the Wet Tropics Management Authority, the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre, and Blueprint for the Bush.

Email Sarah or call 07-4032 1746.