Vision for a Sustainable Future

Abstract

IN 1996, the Australian Federal, State and Territory governments ratified the National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity (Commonwealth of Australia 1996). This strategy states that production systems must be sustainable and not result in further loss of biological diversity. Although there is a considerable amount of work addressing the issues of landscape degradation and sustainability, it is largely conducted in the absence of any clear vision of where Australia, as an environment in which we live, should be at the end of the 21st Century and beyond. That is, Australia lacks an integrated, long-term strategic plan for the future. As a nation, Australia is not alone in lacking a vision for the future. At whatever scale we choose, from global to regional, effective environmental management and the conservation of natural systems are hampered by the lack of vision and planning on the ecological and evolutionary time scales appropriate for complex and continually changing ecosystems.