CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
Past Seminars

Friday, 15 August 2003 11.30am (Tas time)

CSIRO Auditorium and via videoconference to Floreat and Cleveland

Dr Keith Sainsbury

CSIRO Marine Research

North West Shelf Joint Environmental Management Study - science for integrated regional marine planning and management

It has been recognized for some time that achieving Ecologically Sustainable Development requires an integrated approach to understanding and managing the many interacting human uses of ecological systems. The alternative, management focused on individual kinds of human uses within ecologically arbitrary legal jurisdictions, has provided many examples of undesirable and unintended outcomes from the 'tyranny of small decisions' and the cumulative impacts of different uses of the ecological system. A human activity may be sustainable in isolation but not in combination with some other activities, and the single use/jurisdictional focus can discourage consideration of the wider consequences of an activity and even encourage such consequences to be 'externalized'. This recognition has resulted in numerous national and international initiatives, including for example Australia's Oceans Policy. However these initiatives provide mostly 'high level' objectives and frameworks, that for implementation need to be translated into operational procedures and assessments. One aspect of this is development of scientific methods to support multiple use planning and management of regional ecosystems.

The North West Shelf Joint Environmental Management Study (NWSJEMS) is a large, joint study between the Western Australian Government and CSIRO that begun in July 2000 and is now nearing completion. Its overall aim is to develop and demonstrate practical science-based methods to support integrated planning and management for Ecologically Sustainable development of the North West Shelf region. This includes management of both coastal and off-shore human activities. NWSJEMS is producing three kinds of products; information management and data products, models of specific biophysical processes, and models and methods to evaluate existing or prospective multiple use management strategies.

An overview of the study, the approaches taken, and the products will be provided. In part this is background to the next Seminar in the series, in which Dr David McDonald will describe the science plan for CMR research in the next 5y focused on National Ecologically Sustainable Development.

[Back to Seminars]

Legal Notice and Disclaimer | Copyright